Winds of Change
by SailorMoonV
Summary: Carmilla is dead, and Meier Link has taken Charlotte up to the City of the Night. What comes next for D and Leila will surprise them both, however, as they are forced to seek shelter from a sudden sandstorm....


Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust  
  
"Winds of Change"  
  
by Troy A. Stanton  
  
(Author's note: This fanfic draws off of another Vampire Hunter D fanfic  
called "Drawing Blood" by Catherine B. Krusberg. I have obtained her  
permission to make use of her work as a source of material, so anything  
"new" you see in here about D's past with Doris that didn't happen in the  
movie is most likely her original plot material.)  
  
WARNING: This story contains adult content, please do not read beyond  
this point if you are easily offended by such things.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
It wouldn't have been this way if she hadn't passed out in his arms.  
  
D and Leila had just exited that horrible castle, trying to leave their  
dark thoughts and memories behind even as it started to crumble apart. The air  
had grown heavy with smoke and dust, billowing up in a massive cloud that had  
begun to mask the horizon.  
  
She had asked him for a ride to the nearest town, a good hour away as the  
crow flies and even longer by horse. Having just lost the rest of her fellow  
hunters and witnessed a true tragedy that would probably scar what was left of  
her soul forever, it would have been unconscionable for him to have refused  
her, not after what they had just survived together. And so he had offered his  
hand to her.  
  
It only mildly surprised him when she smirked and brushed his hand away,  
reaching up to pull herself into the saddle without his help. Even after all  
that they had undergone, she still retained a fierce sense of independence that  
spoke of the fire that still burned in her heart.  
  
And then a white spark had emerged from the cloud of dust, the roaring  
sound of heavy thrusters reaching their ears moments later. She had let go of  
the saddle to watch, her crystal blue eyes widening as she realized what it  
was: Carmilla's spaceship, taking Meier Link and Charlotte up to what had been  
called the City of the Night.  
  
He said nothing as they both watched, focusing on the sounds coming from  
the thrusters. It was an unsteady mantra, as if the engines were struggling  
harder than they should against the pull of gravity. For a moment, it almost  
seemed as if it wouldn't make it, and that the pair of lovers who had fought  
against everyone to make it this far would not be able to reach their dream.  
  
And then Leila began encouraging the ship, first softly to herself, then  
yelling across the landscape with all her human might. With emotions that he  
never understood and probably never will, she unleashed her heart to will the  
spaceship to fly, to will their dreams to come true.  
  
Even though he was a dunpeal, born with both human and vampiric blood,  
despite his countless centuries spent trying to embrace his mother's humanity  
and deny his father's darkness, he still had little notion of what to do with  
his human emotions or even properly identify them. And when the great ship  
shuddered violently before the engines roared to full capacity, whether on  
their own or somehow buoyed by the sheer power of a single human's will, he was  
completely unprepared for the shiver of emotion that shot through him.  
  
They watched in silence as the spark of light rose higher into the sky,  
eventually disappearing from view. His expression had hardly changed at all  
during the event, but her face.... it would be tears. He hardly understood  
women as a species, understood their emotions even less, and always seemed to  
be at a loss when it came to their tears. It usually meant they would be in an  
unpredictable mood for some time, which is all that he needed after what he had  
just went through....  
  
"Sorry," she apologized quietly as she looked up at him, a pair of tears  
trailing down her face. A faint blush tinted her cheeks as she brushed away  
the tears and reached up again, grabbing the saddle and hoisting herself up in  
front of him. "Let's go," she said, more to herself than to D.  
  
And so they rode, D holding the reins as he set off back down that long,  
twisted road leading up to Carmilla's castle. They didn't try to talk, both  
simply too tired for words and not sure what to say to the other. They had  
walked through their own personal hells back there, she confronting the fires  
of vengeance that had burned inside her for so long, and he not only facing  
down a powerful evil but also the notion of a human girl willingly loving her  
vampire kidnapper, the same kind of love that had led to his own genesis and  
had taunted him mercilessly his entire existence.  
  
He knew he was a hunter by choice, and yet it wasn't a choice. He was  
caught between two worlds, cast out by one and simply unable to accept life as  
a killer in the other. For him, there was only one choice, to eliminate all  
traces of vampires and their evil from this world. He would not rest in his  
crusade until his blood alone contained the darkness which had destroyed so  
much for so long. His rest would come after that, following the last one into  
the comforting embrace of oblivion to put an end to the evil forever.  
  
His dark brooding was interrupted by a subconscious nudge, the faintest of  
gestures from his left hand. With as long as it had been a part of him, he  
still had yet to truly decide what it was. Symbiont? Parasite? In any case,  
it was trying to get his attention for some reason, and after what had just  
happened recently, he wasn't about to start ignoring it yet.  
  
He looked up and glanced around the terrain, making note of the desolate  
condition of the arid land. A pair of pumping stations were visible on the  
horizon, which meant that a town or at least a house was nearby. The trail he  
was on didn't appear to be used, save for a single pair of vehicle tracks that  
led in the opposite direction. Other than what might have been an ordinary  
dust-devil a few hundred yards away, there was nothing around him.  
  
He was starting to wonder what that thing had bothered him for when she  
started to lean back against him. It was a curious gesture in his view, one  
that he wasn't exactly prepared to deal with. Being in physical contact with  
humans was hardly new, and there had been the rare instance in which such a  
touch had been more than casual, but something in the back of his mind warned  
him that Leila didn't seem to be the kind to indulge in such things.  
  
She pressed back harder against him, sending a slight chill creeping down  
his spine. He subconsciously let the reins go slack, absently using his knees  
to keep the horse on a relatively straight path. Feeling uncomfortable with  
the situation more than anything, he started to draw in a breath to ask her if  
anything was wrong.  
  
When she began to tilt to one side, it became obvious that something was  
indeed quite wrong. He let go of the reins and brought his arms up, holding  
her steady as she went limp. A very soft snarl rose up from his throat as he  
realized that she had slipped into unconsciousness. He figured that it was  
most likely from sheer exhaustion, but he couldn't rule out that would on her  
shoulder she had received days ago.  
  
"Leila!" he said, quietly but in a firm voice. "Wake up!"  
  
((D?)) a voice seemed to echo, more in his mind than in his ears. ((She's  
out like a cheap light. Exhaustion, poor girl. Heh, I guess they just don't  
make humans like they used to,)) it added in a distinctly amused tone. ((Time to  
find a place to leave her, eh? Or is that not what you were going to do at the  
first polite opportunity?))  
  
He sighed very quietly as he looked around, pondering his options. The  
town was still at least an hour's ride down the road, and he wasn't sure if he  
wanted to risk it. Even though he hadn't offered her the ride, he nonetheless  
considered her to be his guest for the moment and was thus due his protection.  
He intended to part ways once they reached the town, but he still had to get  
her there first. Preferably alive.  
  
((D? It gets better,)) the voice warned. ((Look behind you.))  
  
Suppressing the sudden urge to draw his sword, he cast a glance over his  
shoulder to see what it was talking about. "How bad is it?" he asked softly,  
studying the haze of what looked to be a sizable storm brewing not too far in  
the distance behind them. Already he could see the winds whipping the dry dust  
up into a frenzy, creating a sort of sandstorm that blotted out the landscape.  
  
((I don't want to be in it, put it like that,)) it replied tartly. ((You  
might want to look for a place for us to bunker down, this feels like it's a  
really nasty one. What's up ahead? Right around that rock formation....))  
  
A second look down the road revealed the edge of a building, most likely  
a farmhouse or a barn. Even if it was a simple toolshed, it would probably be  
enough shelter for their needs. Or at least keep her out of the worst of the  
storm. He wasn't worried about himself, as being a dunpeal meant that he could  
withstand a lot of physical abuse before succumbing, and he certainly wasn't  
going to be consigned to the grave by a mere sandstorm.  
  
"Let's go," he said simply as he picked up the reins with his left hand,  
using the other to keep Leila upright in the saddle as best he could.  
  
((Heh,)) it laughed softly, almost mockingly. ((Time to play the hero once  
more and protect our damsel in distress, eh? Some dunpeals get all the luck,  
or at least all the blondes. Admit it, she's cute, even by your standards. I  
wonder if she'll reward you like the last blonde you rescued...? !!!))  
  
He quickly wrapped the reins around his hands and yanked hard, ignoring  
the pain as the taut leather bit deeply into his skin. The strangled screams  
made by the thing that had taken up residence in his hand echoed in his ears  
long after its voice fell silent. The sound, however loud it was, wasn't as  
loud as the sound of his own soul crying out at the sudden memories.  
  
Memories of another young woman he had the chance to meet, so long ago.  
Memories of fighting to defend her, to protect her against an elder vampire.  
And when the threat had abated and it was just the two of them, the memories  
of how she.... no, of how they.... no, not now.  
  
He shook his head to clear his senses and to refocus on the current task  
at hand. Leila was unconscious and there was the equivalent of a sandstorm  
right behind him, drawing closer with every passing moment. He had to find  
shelter first, as without that he would have little chance at reviving her.  
  
Gripping the reins even tighter, D set off down the road as fast as he  
dared. Had anyone put a mirror in front of him, the look of grim resolve and  
determination in his eyes would have frightened even him.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Lady Luck, for what little he believed of her, seemed to be on his side  
for once in what felt like a very long time. The structure he had seen from  
around a rock formation on the road turned out to be a small ranch house of  
sorts, a modest estate that boasted a sturdy barn and a small guest cabin in  
addition to the main house. The owner had been in the process of putting his  
own horses in the barn when D rode up. A perfunctory greeting of respect, a  
gesture to the unconscious woman in his arms, and a second gesture over his  
shoulder towards the approaching storm was all that was required to be given  
permission to take shelter in the cabin.  
  
Tying his mount to a post for the moment, D quickly carried Leila inside  
the cabin. There wasn't a whole lot to it, basically consisting of a single  
room with a pair of what appeared to be closets on either side. Fortunately  
for his peace of mind, there were two beds on opposite sides of the cabin.  
They looked like they had seen better days, but he truly didn't care as long as  
they were clean and were softer than the ground.  
  
He could already hear the first gusts of wind stirring around the cabin as  
he laid her on one of the beds, absently fluffing up the pillow. A quick check  
of her pulse reassured him that her heart was beating steadily and a simple tug  
on her form-fitting top confirmed that the fabric was still dry, meaning her  
shoulder wound hadn't started to bleed again.  
  
Satisfied with her condition for the moment, he turned around and headed  
back outside to tend to his horse. It snorted with unease as he untied it, no  
doubt keenly aware of the approaching storm. He patted it gently to try to  
reassure it as he led it into the barn, putting it into an empty stall and  
securing it in place.  
  
He returned to the barn entrance, a slight frown crossing his face as he  
noticed just how quickly the storm was intensifying. He wasn't entirely sure  
if this was a natural storm or an unnatural one, perhaps caused by the great  
outpouring of bound energy he had unleashed when Carmilla's spirit was cast  
into the abyss of oblivion.  
  
He looked up as he caught motion off to his side, the owner apparently  
making his way over to the barn. He stopped when D made a gesture, trying to  
indicate that he could secure the barn since he was already there. The old man  
nodded his thanks and darted back inside the house, leaving D to handle the  
task of shutting the massive barn doors.  
  
Heavy as they were and now fighting against the wind, closing them was an  
almost trivial task given his strength. An odd thought crossed his mind as he  
heaved the second door shut, idly wondering if he had gotten stronger as the  
centuries passed, and if so, just how much of that was truly him and how much  
was due to that thing's presence.  
  
((Ooof,)) it protested as he pressed both hands flat against the door and  
gave it a final shove, locking them into place. A simple flick of his wrist  
secured a bolt, and another gesture triggered the locking mechanism. ((Well,  
glad we got that taken care of. Bad enough we lost one horse in this little  
adventure, we really would be in a bad way if we lost this one as well. Not to  
talk bad about your current mount, D, but I do miss that other one. Hey, the  
old man is back, behind you....))  
  
D turned around in time to see the rancher approach him, one hand trying  
to keep his straw-brimmed hat in place against the wind and the other holding  
a large bundle. "Your barn is secure," he told the old man as soon as he got  
close enough to be heard without shouting over the wind.  
  
"Thanks," the rancher said as he held out the package to D. "Here, this  
should help your lady friend. You best stay inside the cabin until this one  
blows over, it's the season for such storms and they're not kind if you get  
caught in the open."  
  
"Thank you," D replied automatically. He accepted the package and went to  
reach for the small pouch of coins on his belt. He paused and looked up as the  
old man suddenly grabbed his arm, shaking his head slowly.  
  
"There's no need for payment," he said in a quiet voice that was almost  
lost to the wind. "I know who you are, vampire-hunter, and I remember what you  
did for the best friend I've ever had in my life. You just watch out for your  
friend and make sure she's alright. The water and sewer pipes work just fine,  
and there should be enough supplies in there to last awhile. See you once this  
storm breaks."  
  
D simply nodded, knowing that there wasn't anything one could truly say in  
response to such sentimental moments. They parted ways and head off, D to the  
relative sanctity of the guest cabin and the old man back to his house. It  
seemed that a great gust of wind sliced past him just as he slipped inside the  
wooden structure, forcing him to turn his head away from the razor-sharp spray  
of sand. The door closed rather solidly a moment later, and it seems, not a  
moment too soon.  
  
He stood just inside the entranceway, pausing to listen to the fury that  
was starting to rage outside. It was stronger than he had anticipated, the  
wind whipping up into a very low monotone howl that seemed to hover just at the  
edges of his hearing. It was not a very pleasant sound to listen to.  
  
((D?)) it asked in a very quiet voice, not sure if Leila was awake or not.  
  
D ignored it for the moment and set about dusting off his hat and cape as  
quickly as possible. A few random shakes produced a sizable pile of sand and  
dirt, making him idly wonder just how much of it was in his boots by now. He  
would accept a shower if one was available, but now was not the time. First he  
had to make absolutely sure Leila was alright....  
  
((D, listen to me,)) it said quietly, the voice taking on a slight hint of  
urgency. ((I don't think you've figured out what you've gotten yourself into  
this time....))  
  
He cast a quick glance at Leila before sighing quietly. "What is it?" he  
asked simply, glancing down at the palm of his left hand. It had gotten more  
skillful at disguising itself over the years, these days appearing to be little  
more than a profusion of unusually deep wrinkles in his skin. Those wrinkles  
were parted now, revealing a pair of featureless eyes and a rather large mouth.  
  
((We're going to be here for at least a couple of days,)) it warned him, one  
eye quirking up as if a non-existent eyebrow were being raised. ((Not to be a  
ninny, but you're closer to another collapse than you want to admit. I know  
you, D, even after that dirt nap you took in the forest earlier, you've still  
spent too much time in the sun lately. Unless you want to wind up in a ditch  
again, you need to rest as long as possible while you're here.))  
  
D just looked at it in silence for a number of moments. "Agreed," he  
finally said.  
  
((A little recharge wouldn't hurt, either,)) it said, appearing to choose  
its words with extreme care and delicacy. Its attempt at tact did little to  
stave off D's reaction at the notion, making a very tight fist that made his  
knuckles as white as sun-bleached bones. ((Ow, D! Listen to me...!))  
  
"One more word and you will regret it," D said calmly, casting a truly  
dark look at the thing. The dark part of him knew it was right, of course, but  
the human part of him, the part he struggled for so long to purify and make  
stronger, shuddered at the thought. Maybe when the need became too much to  
ignore he'd go find another deer to feed from, but until then....  
  
A very soft moan drew his attention away from his dark thoughts, looking  
up to find Leila's face twitching gently. He quickly set the package down,  
looking around the room to assess his options. A small refrigerator and oven  
unit were tucked away in one corner, along with a small cupboard containing a  
number of glasses. It was a simple matter to fetch a glass of cool water to  
take over to her, carefully approaching the bed without getting too close.  
  
"Leila," he called out to her in a gentle tone.  
  
Her eyelids seemed to part with agonizing slowness, finally opening wide  
enough to reveal a glazed pair of blue eyes. He carefully waved the cup back  
and forth to get her attention, nodding absently to himself when she blinked  
and seemed to focus.  
  
"Wh...?" she seemed to wheeze, her breath rasping in her throat.  
  
"You passed out," he said simply as he moved forward, just far enough to  
gently take her hand and press the cup of water into it.  
  
"What?" she moaned as she struggled to sit up, almost spilling the water  
everywhere. She blinked as she realized what she was holding, bringing it up  
for a closer look. She sniffed at it carefully before seeming to inhale it in  
a single motion, greedily drinking down the water to quench the burning fire in  
her throat. "Thanks," she rasped, giving him a grateful look.  
  
D said nothing as he edged back and stood up, turning towards the window  
set into the far wall. He pushed the curtains off to one side, revealing the  
raging sandstorm outside. He stared impassively into it, part of him unable to  
tear himself away from the sight of the swirling chaos outside. He found that  
he could make out individual grains of sand if he changed his focus at just the  
right speed, catching a glimpse of a particle suspended in time for literally  
the blink of an eye before it once again became a shapeless blur to paint the  
horizon with uniform bleakness.  
  
He heard a soft squeaking noise of protest from the bed as Leila moved  
into a sitting position, glancing over to his left just enough to make out a  
faint reflection in the pane of glass. Blurred as the image was, he could  
still make out the blueness of her eyes as she looked around the cabin, one  
hand pressed against the side of her head.  
  
"D, what happened?" she asked aloud, her voice still slightly raw. "And  
where the hell are we?"  
  
"You passed out from exhaustion," he said quietly, returning his focus to  
the storm outside the window. "It would have been too dangerous to try to take  
you all the way to the town. We're on a small ranch, where the owner was kind  
enough to let us use his guest cabin until the storm blew over."  
  
"Bah," she grunted as she tried to rise to her feet. "What storm? Oh,"  
she added as she glanced out the window, her eyes widening slightly. "Damn,  
that looks like a nasty bastard. So how long until it ends? D?" she verbally  
prodded him when she received no immediate reply.  
  
"A day at least," he said impassively. "Probably two or three."  
  
Leila frowned as she looked at him, trying to get a feel for the overall  
situation. "So we're stuck here together, right?" she asked, her tone taking  
on a faint edge.  
  
He cast a sidelong glance at her for a brief instant before looking back  
out at the airborne sea of sand. "So it seems," he replied quietly.  
  
"Great," she grumbled quietly, looking around the small cabin. "Not the  
most cozy of places to end up, but it sure beats a case of windburn. What's  
that?" she added, making a casual gesture to the package.  
  
D turned around to see what she was talking about. "The rancher gave it  
to me," he explained calmly. "He said it should help you."  
  
She paused and turned to regard him carefully. "So what's in it?" she  
asked pointedly.  
  
"I haven't checked," he replied simply before he once again returned his  
attention to the storm outside.  
  
She gave him an irritated look before she moved to take a closer look at  
the package. She pulled her knife from her belt and ran the tip along the edge  
of the package, neatly slicing it open. "Huh," she said loudly as she quickly  
sorted through the contents. "Some gauze and antiseptic, a bar of what looks  
to be home-made soap.... what is this stuff? Oh, detergent, and a washboard.  
I haven't seen one of these in years," she chuckled to herself as she pulled  
out the rather old and obviously well-used antique washboard. "At least we can  
try getting all the blood-stains out of our clothes.... Damn," she added a  
moment later. "All my clothes are back in the tank, dammit. Oh, hey, what's  
this thing? Whoops...."  
  
D shifted his focus again at the sudden shift in her voice tone, using the  
glass as a sort of mirror to see what was going on. She was standing in front  
of the open package holding some sort of pale blue fabric. It took him a few  
moments to realize that it was a nightgown of sorts, and if the reflection was  
accurate, a rather sheer one at that.  
  
"Anyway," she said quickly as she finished poking through the package.  
"Mmmmph. Let's hope these belong to his wife," she muttered as she held up a  
pair of clean panties before tossing them back into the package. She paused as  
she realized she missed something, reaching back inside to pull out a pair of  
ordinary dull-gray boxer shorts. "Yeeech," she said sourly as she tossed them  
back inside, casting a quick glance at D's back. "Well, at least we've got our  
asses covered for a day or two. So, what else is in here?" she asked the room  
in general as she began to explore the small cabin.  
  
D did his best to tune out her casual prattle, knowing that if he had to  
put up with it the entire time they were trapped together, it was going to be  
a very long experience. He thought he understood the human need for company,  
to interact with others and be acknowledged, but that still didn't make it any  
easier for him. He far preferred solitude, kept company only by his own quiet  
thoughts and the transient sounds as he traveled from one region to the next  
in search of vampires.  
  
A faint twitch in his hand reminded him of its presence, adding another  
layer of depressive gloom to his mood. At least he was used to dealing with  
that thing, for the most part. He would readily admit that it had been more  
than useful lately, able to see and sense things that he could not. That it  
could absorb a great deal of evil without harm, far more than D himself could  
cope with, also helped make it worth keeping around despite the grief it gave  
him on a regular basis.  
  
"You've got to be kidding me," Leila moaned behind him, causing him to  
turn around. She was standing in front of one of the closet doors, only it  
wasn't a closet per se but actually a toilet. A very cramped toilet, barely  
big enough for the commode itself, let alone any space for an occupant to use  
it in comfort. "Well, at least there's toilet paper," she muttered sourly as  
she turned around to check the other unknown door.  
  
The other door housed a shower stall, being about as large as the toilet  
in terms of available floor space. It wouldn't be an overly comfortable fit,  
and it was guaranteed to drive a claustrophobic over the edge, but like the  
toilet it appeared to be fully functional if you didn't mind not being able to  
stretch your arms out.  
  
"Okay...." she said slowly, clearly nonplussed at the discovery. "Tell me  
we at least have some hot water running to this thing."  
  
"Check the sink," D suggested without turning around.  
  
"Thanks, D," she replied sarcastically as she headed over to the tiny  
basin wedged in the corner between the refrigerator and the bathroom wall. A  
simple twist of a spigot produced a steady stream of water, and it was only a  
matter of seconds before wafts of steam began to drift up from the basin.  
  
"That'll work," she cooed to herself, looking around to see if she could  
find a towel or two. A few minutes of casual rummaging through every small  
cabinet she could find finally resulted in a small stack of clean sheets and  
towels being discovered in the cupboard's top-most shelf. "You know, maybe  
this place isn't so bad after all. A little cramped for my tastes, but I guess  
I could get used to it. D, is there something out there?" she added, casting  
a slightly suspicious look at his back.  
  
She waited for an answer, sighing quietly to herself when she only got  
silence in response. "Some company you are," she muttered as she reassessed  
her situation. A great number of aches and pains had taken up residence in her  
joints, and she still was feeling a touch light-headed from earlier. A hot  
shower would probably do wonders for her, both in body and mind, but first she  
had to find a way into the shower without embarrassing herself....  
  
The shower door swung outward, providing a bit of a partition that she  
could use to undress. There simply wasn't enough space inside the shower stall  
itself to do so, at least not without adding a few bumps and bruises to her  
already painful collection. Sighing quietly, she grabbed the largest towel she  
could find and started to edge behind the open door as best she could.  
  
"D?" she called out loudly, making sure she heard him. "I'm going to go  
take a shower, okay? And I've got my knife with me, so don't even think of  
trying anything funny," she warned him in an edged tone.  
  
He turned around to look at her, his usually impassive face seeming to say  
to her, 'give me a break'. He quietly stared into her eyes in silence before  
he nodded to her, turning his back to her again and looking out into the raging  
sandstorm once more. He simply ignored the low monotone grumble from her as  
she began to get undressed, pausing for a moment to set aside the heavy energy  
pistol that she had kept strapped to her hip.  
  
The sound of the shower starting up could be heard a moment later as she  
resumed undressing, quite obviously waiting for it to warm up before stepping  
inside. Even with his attention focused on the outside and not on the blurred  
reflection of the glass, he caught a glimpse of her blue eyes taking one final  
peek around the door before she stepped inside and firmly closed the door.  
  
((D?)) it spoke up in a very quiet tone. ((Let me see what's going on.)) D  
sighed quietly before he raised his left hand, lightly resting his fingertips  
against the glass. ((Nasty bastard indeed,)) it mused quietly after several  
moments of studious silence. ((Be glad you didn't try to make it to the town,  
I don't think any of us would have made it. Not in this storm. Whew....))  
  
D said nothing as he continued to stare out into the storm. He wasn't  
exactly sure why he found it so fascinating all of a sudden. Granted he had  
seen his fair share of such storms, indeed almost becoming buried alive once  
ages ago by a freak storm that had taken him by surprise, but there was just  
something so captivating about this particular storm. He just stared at it,  
absently trying to track the movement of individual grains of sand as they blew  
past him at a terrifying speed.  
  
((D, I want you to listen to me,)) it spoke up. ((I know you don't like me  
too well, and I know you've been tempted to cut me off on occasion for saying  
things you'd rather not hear, but I'm willing to risk it this time. I just  
want five minutes of your time, that's all. Five minutes and I'll shut up.))  
  
He glanced down at the back of his hand, wondering just what exactly it  
wanted to tell him. It had no shortage of advice to offer on everything he had  
encountered, some of it even worthwhile enough to listen to, but most of what  
it said tended to be for its own amusement. The tone it was taking this time,  
however, was decidedly unusual. For once, it sounded.... sincere.  
  
"Very well," he said in a low tone. "Five minutes."  
  
He could almost see the window fogging up as it let out a breath, only to  
draw in a deeper one. ((Thanks. Look, I'm just going to get to the point with  
this, okay? Leila is hurt, big time. Not so much in a physical sense, her  
shoulder aside, but in an emotional one. She's a human, of course, and humans  
are emotionally fragile creatures. Think.... she just witnessed the brutal  
slaying of the Markus brothers, her friends and comrades-in-arms, and watched  
the travesty of Charlotte's love for Meier Link play out to a very bittersweet  
end. It's enough to sour her taste for vengeance, and you need to help her let  
it all go.))  
  
D simply nodded in understanding, having seen most of that himself and  
far, far worse during the course of his existence. Feeling the powerful tug of  
unknown emotions ripping at him after listening to Charlotte's final words to  
Meier, he could only imagine what it had done to someone like Leila.  
  
((First and foremost, you need to be very, very, very careful with her  
tonight. I'll bet you anything that she's going to have a nightmare when she  
finally goes to sleep, and it'll probably be a violent one at that. I'd ask  
her to do something about that pistol of hers so you don't wind up with a large  
waffle-sized hole in your chest simply because she woke up in a panic and you  
were the first target she saw.))  
  
A soft grunt rose up from the dunpeal's chest, knowing that it was not  
making an idle remark about the probabilities of that event. "Go on," he said  
in a calm tone.  
  
((I'll be honest, I'm not much of an expert at human psychology,)) it said  
in a warning tone. ((But I know this much.... once the anger leaves her, she'll  
feel cold and empty inside. She will need something to fill the void. You  
know.... like what happened to Doris. WAIT!)) it yelled as D balled his hand  
into a tight fist. ((Dammit, D, I'm not being mean, you know as well as I do  
that when you helped Doris, you helped yourself! LISTEN!))  
  
It took a great effort for D to get his emotions under control and relax  
his grip on the open air. He glanced up at the window, taking a step back as  
he caught sight of his own reflection. He breathed through his nose until he  
was sure that he had calmed back down enough to regain his normally stoic  
composure.  
  
((D,)) it said quietly, ((Just listen. You're half-human, and you know it.  
You don't like dealing with your human emotions, but that's just the way you  
are. Just as you can't draw on the strength of your father's blood to fight  
people like Meier Link and Carmilla without incurring a cost that can only be  
paid in blood, you can't draw upon the warmth and compassion of your mother's  
blood to bring comfort to others without needing some of that repaid in kind.  
Deny what you will, you have the needs of both, maybe not as strong a need as  
either but you have them nonetheless.  
  
((I know what Doris meant to you. D, listen....)) it pleaded as his hand  
began to tighten of its own accord. ((I know why she meant so much to you.  
It's because she helped you satisfy your needs as a human, and in a way that  
can only be given willingly from the human heart. Are you listening?))  
  
"That's enough," D said, his voice barely more than a whisper.  
  
((You need to get this into your head,)) it persisted. ((You can't bring  
emotional comfort to Leila unless you open yourself to her, and that is what  
you have to do if you truly want to help her. She's standing at a crossroads  
in her life, D, she needs to be shown what its like to have human emotions in  
her heart instead of only the bitter ashes of vengeance. You can show it to  
her because you've done it before, and it didn't kill you to do it! No, it  
actually made you stronger inside, D! How many times have your memories of  
Doris kept you going in dark hours?))  
  
"Enough!" he hissed through clenched teeth. He could feel himself on the  
edge of truly losing control, of letting his vampiric nature show itself as it  
had when he had confronted Carmilla's full power.  
  
((Just think about it,)) it said in a very quiet voice. ((It's too soon for  
either of you. Let her get past her anger first, D, then see if you can truly  
help her make something of her life. And don't forget the gun.))  
  
He exhaled slowly as he stood up straight, casting a glance behind him at  
the pile of clothes next to the shower door. The silver-barreled gun was still  
in its holster, lying atop the dark red fabric of her jumpsuit. He was giving  
very serious consideration to walking over to see if he could try to disable  
the firing pin or at least drain the charging unit when the door swung open.  
Sighing quietly, he turned back around to stare out into the storm, trying to  
empty his mind of the myriad of dark and heavy thoughts that suddenly filled  
what was left of his soul.  
  
He well and truly wasn't trying to watch her, but the eye was naturally  
drawn to subtle movements just outside its focus. He was able to make out the  
blueness of her eyes as she peeked around the corner, obviously trying to see  
if he was going to 'try something funny' while she dried herself off.  
  
His mind's eye suddenly flashed back to the last time he had been in a  
situation like this. Doris had just come out of the shower, her body still  
dripping water when she came to him, asking if he could turn away from his path  
in life to be with her. She had approached him, held him, even offered herself  
to him as the robe parted, telling him in all her naked glory that she was in  
love with him....  
  
Leila paused in mid-rub as she could almost physically sense a change in  
D's mood. His back was still to her, still standing in the same place he had  
been in when she went in to the cramped shower, but something seemed different  
all of a sudden. He was still staring out at God-knows-what in the storm, but  
the look in the reflection of his eyes....  
  
"D?" she called out to him, one hand straying down to her hip by sheer  
reflex. She paused as she remembered that she wasn't wearing anything, save  
for the webbed holster for her knife strapped to her otherwise bare thigh which  
really didn't count as clothing. She quickly edged back behind the door as far  
as she could manage, still studying him carefully. "Hey, you alright?"  
  
His head turned slightly to one side, just enough to let him look at her  
through the slightly distorted reflection of the window. Aw, shit, I forgot  
about that! she fumed to herself, feeling a dark blush rise up to her cheeks.  
She knew he had seen her breasts earlier when he had bandaged her shoulder a  
number of days ago, but the mere thought of possibly being seen naked while  
changing was still more than enough to embarrass her.  
  
"I'm fine," he replied in a monotone as he looked back out at the storm.  
  
She paused again at his tone, a sort of sixth-sense telling her that he  
really wasn't as fine as he claimed to be. "You sure about that?" she said as  
she absently resumed drying off. She cast a quick glance at both her clothes  
and the contents of the package, privately wondering just how she was going to  
handle this one.  
  
"Just tired, that's all," he replied truthfully.  
  
She nodded in understanding, knowing that she was pretty worn out from the  
whole ordeal and that he had probably gone through far more than she did. She  
cast a quick glance at her clothes again and made a snap-decision. "Well, the  
shower is yours if you want," she said, making sure to wrap the towel around  
herself as tightly as possible. "And I don't think hot water is going to be a  
problem."  
  
He glanced at her through the reflection for a moment. "Thank you," he  
said simply. He showed no signs of moving, however, making her start to wonder  
just what exactly the problem was.  
  
She scowled at his back as she knelt down to scoop up her clothes, taking  
them over to the sink and dumping all but her pistol holster inside. She put  
the stopper in the drain and began to fill it up with warm water, keeping one  
eye on him and one hand on the edge of her towel as she gathered the washboard  
and laundry detergent together.  
  
"Hey," she called out to him, causing him to glance at her through the  
reflection again. "I'm going to try to do some quick laundry scrubbing. If  
you want your stuff cleaned while I've got this all set up, you might as well  
pass it over now. Dunno about that hat, but I think your cape has seen better  
days," she added archly.  
  
She waited to see some sort of reaction to her offer, a nod, a twitch, a  
simple gesture, anything. The expression on her face darkened even further as  
he seemed to be ignoring her, staring out at the damned storm for some reason.  
"D," she said sharply, causing him to physically turn around to look at her.  
  
She raised a hand and pointed to the shower stall. "Let me try it like  
this," she growled. "We just went through hell, and I could smell us both on  
the road back there. If I have to spend a few days cooped up in this tiny-ass  
cabin, that's fine, I can handle that.... but not if you reek. Now either go  
take a shower or I throw you outside. Your choice."  
  
His only immediate reaction was a slight raising of one eyebrow, giving  
her a look that might have been faint amusement. He very slowly reached up to  
grab the sword that hung from his back, causing her to tense up. She relaxed  
a moment later when he removed the scabbard and set it next to the bed on the  
right, taking off his hat to hang it on the hilt.  
  
She watched patiently as his boots came off next, both of them making a  
slight face at the amount of sand and dirt that slid out onto the floor. There  
was a similar pile of dirt next to her own boots, but it wasn't nearly as bad  
as the mess D was making. A sudden surge of heat beneath her fingertips told  
her that the basin was not only filled but close to overflowing by now, causing  
her to scramble to turn off the faucet.  
  
She had to reach in to loosen the stopper for a few moments, allowing just  
enough water to drain out to avoid a flooding hazard. She looked up just in  
time to catch him removing his cape, blinking hard as she realized that he was  
wearing some sort of compact body armor. The design was in her opinion nothing  
short of genius in the way it flawlessly blended in with the rest of his dark  
clothing. Damn, I'd like to get a suit of armor like that, she thought as she  
watched him set it on the floor next to his sword.  
  
Her eyes became slightly wide as she watched him methodically strip down  
to the waist, removing all sorts of small bags, pouches, tools, and jewelry she  
hadn't noticed before. Where the hell did he keep all that? she wondered as he  
removed his knife belt and set it aside. That one had been rather obvious, as  
was the pouch that he kept his money in, but everything else....  
  
She snapped out of her idle reverie as she felt the weight of his gaze on  
her, looking up to find herself on the receiving end of a rather intense look.  
She felt the heat rising to her face as she looked away, suddenly realizing  
that she had been staring at him as he undressed. She busied herself with the  
basin of warm water, stirring in half of the detergent flakes to try to start  
the soaking process while actively avoiding that penetrating gaze of his.  
  
"Thank you," D said softly, apparently from right behind her shoulder as  
he held out a neatly folded bundle consisting of his cape and tunic.  
  
She nearly hit the ceiling in shock, completely unaware that he had moved  
across the room. As it was, she was unable to prevent herself from whipping  
around in a blur, one hand grasping her knife and drawing it upward....  
  
His hand snagged her wrist just as it started to come up, his eyes boring  
into hers as the combat reflex passed. Her eyes widened dangerously as she  
realized what had happened, trying to take a quick step back to put some space  
between her and the mysterious vampire-hunter.  
  
"D!" she gasped as she tugged her wrist free from him, quickly putting her  
knife back in its sheath. "Damn it, don't DO that! Christ...." she panted  
as she discreetly tugged the edge of the towel back over her leg, which she had  
rather thoroughly bared when grabbing the knife.  
  
He said nothing as he set his bundle of dirty clothes down on top of the  
stove, exchanging them for the clean towel that had been left out. He turned  
to head towards the shower when she called out to him quietly, causing him to  
stop and cast a guarded glance over his shoulder.  
  
"D, I'm sorry about that," she apologized quietly. "I guess I'm still a  
little keyed up from earlier."  
  
"Don't worry about it," he replied calmly. "You have good reflexes," he  
added, his tone changing ever so slightly as if he might have considered trying  
to tease her about it.  
  
"Thanks," she said, not knowing what else to say. She paused as a thought  
came to mind and she turned around, reaching for the open package. "Oh, umm,  
one more thing," she said, talking over her shoulder without turning around to  
face him. "You might as well fork over everything so I can get this done all  
at once. Here," she added, holding up the pair of boxers while keeping her  
eyes firmly on the wall in front of her.  
  
It seemed that an eternity passed before she heard a very soft grunt of  
what might have been amusement, followed by the muted sound of a zipper. It  
was all she could do to keep her focus on the wall, trying to see if she could  
spot any seams or chips in whatever it was that had turned it a dull tan color.  
A pair of carefully folded ink-black pants were added to the pile of somewhat  
dusty and equally dark clothes. The boxers were gently taken from her hand,  
and shortly afterward what could only be a pair of underwear joined the top of  
the dirty laundry pile.  
  
Black, of course.  
  
That almost prompted a giggle from her as she heard him pad over to the  
shower stall. She heard the door start to creak close, and unable to resist  
she cast a quick glance over her shoulder....  
  
....and found D looking right back at her, the towel wrapped around his  
waist and a faintly reproving look in his eye. The door was solidly shut an  
instant later, leaving her standing in front of the sink with a truly heinous  
blush rising to her cheeks.  
  
"Damn it," she muttered to herself, feeling her blush only get worse as  
she thought about what he might be thinking right now. "How the hell did I  
end up in this situation? And I thought trying to deal with vampires was a  
rough situation? Damn...."  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
There was a partial truth to the legend that running water is harmful to  
vampires. Crossing it doesn't bother them in the least, and it's only a full  
immersion in a large body of flowing water that proves to be problematic. Of  
course, it's not the water per se that harms them, but the fact that a vampire  
can't breathe while being held under that tends to prove fatal. Aside from  
that little detail, vampires enjoyed hot showers just as much as humans did.  
  
D leaned forward to rest against the wall as best he could, bent slightly  
at the waist as he did absolutely nothing except savor the warmth as it flowed  
over his body. A life spent in constant travel and combat meant that heated  
showers were few and far between, rare luxuries that were thoroughly savored  
whenever the opportunity arose.  
  
((D, you mind?)) it spoke up in a distinctly relaxed and patient tone. He  
lowered his left arm to his side, allowing the heated spray of water to flow  
across his shoulder and run down the length of his arm. ((Ahhhhhh,)) it sighed  
as it relaxed in the surge of heat. ((Oh, now this is what I call a well-earned  
reward. Hey, just take your time, I'm in no hurry.))  
  
He of course had every intention of doing just that, at least for a few  
minutes. For once in a very long time, he felt that he could relax his guard  
for the most part, knowing that in the extremely unlikely event that anything  
tried to enter the cabin, Leila would deal with it. Or at least buy him enough  
time to get out of the shower and grab his sword....  
  
((Umm, D?)) it ventured. ((Can you do me a favor and put me up to the shower  
head for a moment? Between absorbing that shadow-prison and dealing with that  
vampire spirit of Carmilla's, I've got a lingering aftertaste that I would like  
to try to rinse out.))  
  
D sighed quietly to himself, reluctant to block out even part of the hot  
water for a few brief moments. He raised his arm nonetheless, bringing his  
left palm to within a few inches of where the cone of water was blasting forth  
with a rather strong amount of pressure.  
  
He could feel it in his arm when the thing opened its mouth, literally  
inhaling the entire stream of water. The intake lasted for a few agonizing  
seconds before it stopped, letting the heated water rain down on his body once  
more. An odd current seemed to ripple inside his arm as it made a sort of  
swishing sound before it began to choke.  
  
Frowning, D knelt down as best he could, holding his hand as close to the  
tiny floor drain as possible. He blinked in surprise when a torrent of water  
as black as the night itself was sprayed out from his palm, swirling down the  
drain like so much liquid ink.  
  
((Bllleeeerrrrrgh,)) it coughed. ((Erk, that was some nasty stuff. Mind  
if I try this one again? Yuck, and me without any mints....)) The process was  
repeated twice more before the third expulsion of tainted water was markedly  
clearer than the first two had been, prompting a quiet belch and a soft sigh  
from the thing.  
  
((Thank you, D,)) it said. ((That shadow-spell had actually tasted pretty  
good the first time around, but I think absorbing some of Carmilla's poisonous  
nature ruined it for me. Now I know what your father put up with,)) it added  
with a very subtle shiver.  
  
D said nothing as he reached for the bar of home-made soap Leila had left  
in the tiny soap tray. The soap itself was low-quality but it was still soap,  
which he began to work through his shoulder-length hair in an attempt to get  
all the dirt and trail-dust out.  
  
He lost track of time as he thoroughly washed himself, not sure when the  
next opportunity to do so would arise. Oh, there would be dips in rivers and  
the like, and he usually made no effort to keep out of the rain whenever it  
decided to fall on him, but none of those things would ever come even close to  
the sense of cleanliness one felt after a proper shower.  
  
Eventually he decided that he was finished both scrubbing and soaking, and  
that further time spent in the shower would only cause his skin to wrinkle up  
as it absorbed water. A simple twist of the pair of knobs ended the heated  
indoor rain, allowing him to stand motionless to drip-dry for a few minutes.  
  
Drip... drip... drip.... The sound seemed to echo unusually loud in his  
head as he listened to the steady mantra. He paused to think about why it was  
bothering him so much, why it sounded so.... familiar....  
  
D? her voice had called out as she left the shower. The robe had already  
been tied shut at that point, but she had left her hair unbound and it was from  
her hair that the stray droplets fell. Are you here? she wondered. D...?  
  
He shook his head as hard as he could, trying to dispel the sound of her  
voice and return the memories to the past where they belonged. His violent  
motions sent his hair whipping back and forth behind him, slapping against the  
walls to sound like a thousand tiny whips working in a discordant chorus.  
  
((Hey, hey, hey!)) it protested as it too was shaken around by his sudden,  
almost visceral reaction. ((D, settle down! What the hell's with you all of a  
sudden? Easy or you'll give yourself whiplash....))  
  
A deep grunt rose up from his chest as the sound of its voice brought him  
back to his senses. He reached up with his right hand, squeezing the last bit  
of water out of his hair before tossing it back over his shoulder. He know why  
he was becoming haunted once more by his memories of her, to say nothing of  
what it would try to do to his dreams.  
  
He doubted that the comforts of sleep would be anything but comforting for  
him tonight. More so since he wouldn't be alone, and he hadn't had to put up  
with sleeping in the same room with someone else in quite some time. Again he  
counted himself fortunate that there were two beds in the cabin, so that he  
wouldn't be forced to sleep on the floor. There might have been a theoretical  
second option, but he hadn't allowed himself to do that since....  
  
((D?)) it asked as it sensed a rapidly darkening mood. ((What's on your mind  
all of a sudden? I know you have mood swings every so often, but they tend to  
go from dark to darker and back again, nothing like this. Don't tell me you're  
still upset over Charlotte being in love with Meier Link....))  
  
"It's nothing," D replied quietly as he started to wipe the worst of the  
water off of his body.  
  
((Come on, D,)) it prodded him. ((Admit it, you're still bothered by the  
notion that Charlotte loved Meier and that she just might have gone on to give  
birth to their love-child, another dunpeal just like yourself....))  
  
The voice fell silent as D raised his hand his face, staring hard into its  
wrinkled features. "But that won't be happening, will it?" he said flatly.  
  
((But it's the thought that counts, isn't it?)) it replied with what might  
have been a smirk. The look was promptly removed from what passed for its face  
as D reached out to grab the towel hanging on the inside doorknob. ((Hey, now  
D, don't go getting all.... OW, HEY!))  
  
He ignored the steady stream of protests as he began to dry himself off as  
briskly as he could manage given the close confines of the shower. There were  
indeed days in which he was ready to take his sword to his own flesh, to excise  
that thing from his hand and be freed from it once and for all. The impulses  
usually went away after a few moments as he reminded himself of all the times  
in which it had not only helped him directly but unequivocally saved his life  
from various gruesome demises.  
  
The motion of his hands started to slow, then cease entirely as something  
tickled the back of his mind. It wasn't the half-audible, half-mental call of  
the thing in his hand, nor was it the spiritual call of something trying to  
reach him. It took him a moment to realize that it was his own subconscious  
mind trying to warn him of something.  
  
He remained perfectly still as he extended all of his senses outward, his  
dunpeal nature able to pick up on things no human could. A few moments of deep  
concentration revealed that he could still make out the low, constant monotone  
howling of the wind outside. It was a very haunting sound, at just the right  
pitch to avoid being both heard or felt as a vibration by normal humans. But  
he wasn't anywhere near to being a normal life-form....  
  
((D, what are you listening to?)) it asked as softly as it could manage.  
  
What indeed? he asked himself, trying to tune out the muted ambient sounds  
around him. He could hear an unsteady rasping sound, probably caused by Leila  
running wet fabric over the washboard. He could hear the faint gurgle of water  
in the drain beneath his feet, carrying it away into the sewer system. And he  
could hear the howling call of the storm.  
  
"The storm," he finally said, almost too softly to hear himself.  
  
((What about it?)) it asked after a moment of concentration. ((Sounds rather  
deep to me, but most heavy wind-driven storms do that. Resonance caused by it  
screwing with the atmosphere. Not exactly my idea of a symphony of the night,  
mind you, but it does have a sort of pleasing ring once you get used to it.))  
  
Resonance, D thought slowly. He knew there was something about it he was  
missing, but further concentration and focus produced no new insights into it.  
He changed the focus of his hearing as he heard a new set of sounds, a pair of  
rather light footsteps walking across the floor, shortly followed by the soft  
squeaking of a mattress.  
  
((Heh,)) it spoke up, its tone immediately making him wary of what it was  
about to say next. ((Sounds like someone's all ready for bed, eh? What do you  
think, D, time to wrap this up and call it a night as well? Granted it's only  
a few hours past noon, but after the day we've had.... or was it two? Come to  
think of it, just how long did we spend chasing after Meier Link's carriage?))  
  
He said nothing as he finished drying off and wrapped the towel around his  
waist, opening the door just enough to grab the pair of boxers he had left on  
the floor. They weren't the most comfortable fit, apparently having been made  
for someone with a slightly smaller waist, but they served their purpose well  
enough for his needs. The color was less than ideal, but he didn't anticipate  
having to fight in any dark areas garbed only in his borrowed undershorts.  
  
The towel was kept wrapped around his waist as he stepped out of the tiny  
shower, casting a reflexive look around to room to see what had changed. Both  
his clothes and hers were hanging from a length of rope that had been tied to  
both ends of the room, serving as a crude clothesline. The rest of the cabin  
was essentially dark, only dimly illuminated by the meager amount of light that  
managed to slip past both the heavy stormclouds and the closed curtain of the  
window.  
  
Leila was in the bed on the left, curled up in a ball beneath the layers  
of blankets. A look of weariness and exhaustion was plainly evident on her  
face, but her gaze was still sharply focused as she watched him move over to  
the other bed in eerie silence.  
  
"I figured I could use a nap," she said quietly to him, casting a causal  
glance at his well-toned body. "And if you don't mind me saying so, you look  
like you could use some sleep yourself. I'm not about to tear a hole in the  
floor to bury you in the ground again, however," she added archly.  
  
He paused to cast a slightly unfriendly glance in her direction before he  
untucked the sheets on his bed, still holding the edge of his towel in his left  
hand. "Where's your pistol?" he asked quietly.  
  
A look of suspicion immediately crossed her face. "Right where I can get  
to it in an instant," she replied in a flat tone. "You don't exactly strike me  
as the kind of dunpeal to take advantage of a woman in a situation like this,  
but I'm not about to take any chances."  
  
He didn't even pause in the slightest as he finished making the bed ready.  
"Take the firing pin out," he said, his voice tone remaining steady.  
  
"Now why would I want to do that?" she asked, her voice almost literally  
dripping sarcasm. She blinked and edged back a fraction of an inch as his head  
came up to look at her, his dark eyes seeming to bore straight into her soul.  
  
"I have no wish to die because you woke up from a nightmare and thought I  
was a threat to you," he replied in an emotionless tone. "I can try to rouse  
you from a nightmare if you want, but not if it means risking bodily harm."  
  
She looked at him in uncertain silence for a number of moments before she  
looked away. "I'll think about it," she retorted. She paused and glanced back  
over at him as he set the towel down next to his sword and slid into bed, able  
to catch only a brief glimpse of his boxers in the process.  
  
A faint blush sprang to her cheeks as she rolled over onto her other side,  
turning her back to him. She was wearing the borrowed panties and nightgown,  
neither one doing much to counter her feelings of being exposed and vulnerable.  
The jumpsuit she had favored as of late wasn't much in terms of outright armor,  
at least not compared to what he had been wearing earlier, but at least she was  
comfortable wearing that.  
  
The feeling of the knife sheath pressing against her thigh reminded her of  
both its presence and D's request that she disable her pistol. Tucked under  
her pillow for the moment, the heavy weapon brought her the most comfort in her  
situation, knowing that if anything did happen she would be able to defend  
herself. Not that she honestly believed he would try anything, but in times  
like these, who could you really trust?  
  
She could hear Kyle's words echoing inside her head, cautioning her how  
'irresistibly cute' she was while wearing the jumpsuit, and that she needed to  
be very careful lest she draw more attention than she would have liked. Now  
there's a thought, she mused with a dark chuckle. I'd like to see someone be  
able to turn D's head, even if only for a moment. That'd be a laugh....  
  
The faint smile on her face slowly faded into a worried frown as she very  
quickly slipped into an exhausted slumber, her conscious mind slowly giving way  
to the whispering voices and memories of her subconscious. Just before she  
entered the realm of dreams, her hand gently slipped beneath the pillow to her  
pistol, absently twisting one of the pins back and locking it open.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"I have to do this to Dan sometimes," she had said quietly to him, her  
fingers slowly running over his shoulderblades. He found it odd that her touch  
could be so dangerously cold, yet so searingly warm at the same time. It was  
that same unmistakable touch that tormented him now, reminding him of how her  
touch had evolved into so much more that night.  
  
He knew it was wrong, all wrong, that what happened was in the past, long  
in the past, but still it played out in his mind with agonizing slowness. He  
could feel his soul trying to claw its way out from inside the dream, trying to  
escape the memories that had haunted him for so long before finally, mercifully  
falling silent in his dreams.  
  
A voice cut across his mind's eye like the blade of a knife, seeming to  
flash with intolerable brilliance as it reflected the light. He bolted upright  
before he even realized what it was, the room seemingly cast in a blue haze.  
His vision cleared a moment later as he got the equivalent of a strangle-hold  
on his darker side, flinging it back to the dark recesses of his mind to return  
his teeth to normal and extinguish the blue glow from his eyes.  
  
((D!)) it yelled at him, its voice filled with urgency. ((Wake up, we've got  
a problem here!))  
  
He immediately looked around the room, his hand already reaching out for  
the hilt of his sword. He paused as he heard a very soft moan, one pitched low  
enough that would have raised the hair on his arms if he had any.  
  
"Leila," he whispered, his voice dry and hoarse for some reason.  
  
((Tell me about it,)) it replied. ((She didn't waste any time in having a  
nightmare, I'll tell you that. Sounds like a real soul-shredder, too. You'd  
better do something about it and fast,)) it warned. ((And watch out for that  
first wake-up reflex....))  
  
"Leila!" he called out, trying to raise his voice. He could feel how his  
throat was dangerously raw from dehydration, having forgotten to drink anything  
before going to bed. He paused for several moments to try to remember when he  
had drunk anything in the past two days, only to snap out of his introspection  
as she moaned again.  
  
He quickly got to his feet and crossed the room, ignoring the fact that he  
was essentially wearing only a pair of somewhat tight shorts with a distinctly  
loose fly. It was probably the only reason he disliked boxers, as it was not  
a healthy idea to enter highly-energetic combat when you didn't have everything  
of importance securely tied down or otherwise held firmly in place.  
  
Deciding he had to risk it, he reached down to take hold of her wrist,  
calling her name out again as loudly as he could. Her eyes snapped open the  
instant his flesh touched hers, her pupils wide enough to almost completely  
block out the vibrant blue color of her irises. Her gaze wasn't focused in the  
least, however, and even with his enhanced reaction time he couldn't completely  
follow what happened next.  
  
Those glazed-over eyes darted in his direction, and in what had to be less  
than a tenth of a second he found himself staring at the business end of her  
heavy energy pistol. He leapt back as fast as he could, trying to twist to one  
side so that the barrel was aimed at something other than an instant kill-zone.  
His motions resulted in his left shoulder being in the line-of-fire when the  
trigger was pulled, igniting a spark of energy deep inside the barrel.  
  
Time seemed to come to a halt as the heavy clicking sound echoed in the  
still air. It hung there like a veil of fog before fading away into a silence  
so perfect that D could clearly make out both their heartbeats, thumping away  
at a pace that would startle a hummingbird.  
  
And then Leila finally blinked, bringing her eyes into full focus and her  
mind into consciousness. "D!" she gasped as she jerked back, the horror of  
what had just happened starting to sink in. "Oh, shit! D, are you alright?!"  
  
He moved back as slowly and as calmly as he could manage, actively trying  
not to startle her with any sudden movements. "I'm fine," he said quietly. He  
paused for a moment before he calmly added, "Thank you for removing the pin."  
  
"God-DAMMIT!" she panted as she bolted into a sitting position, dropping  
the weapon into her lap. The layer of blankets tumbled down a moment later,  
confirming D's suspicions that the fabric was extremely sheer. "What...." she  
she started to say before trying to slow her breathing. "What happened?"  
  
"You had a nightmare," he said simply as he stood up and started to turn  
around. He was nearly yanked off-balance as her hand lashed out to grab his  
wrist in an iron grip, holding on to him as if he was all that stood between  
her and the grave.  
  
"D, wait," she pleaded. She blinked as she realized what she was doing  
and let go, running her hand through her short blonde hair. Her fingertips  
came away soaked with sweat, resulting in a mild shiver as she realized that  
her whole body was now covered in it.  
  
He said nothing as he stood there, his eyes impassively watching her as  
she slowly recovered from the nightmare. It was a pure reflex that brought his  
gaze down to her chest for a moment, distantly making note of the obvious fact  
that she wasn't wearing a bra. She hadn't worn one earlier either, back when  
he had to unzip the front of her jumpsuit to bind her shoulder wound.  
  
The thought of it was enough to change his focus, drawing his attention  
higher up on her body. A slight frown crossed his face when he realized that  
she had removed the gauze bindings, exposing the still-raw wound to the open  
air. The edges were still an angry red color, meaning that it really should  
still be bandaged if it was to avoid infection and heal properly.  
  
She looked up as he started to walk across the room, wondering just what  
exactly he was doing now. She blinked when she realized that he was removing  
the gauze and antiseptic from the package the rancher had given them earlier,  
causing her to glance down at her exposed shoulder. "Damn," she muttered to  
herself, realizing that she had forgotten to take care of it earlier. She knew  
she had been tired, but she didn't think she had been tired enough to forget to  
take care of something as important as that.  
  
He knelt down on the hard wood floor next to her, his silent approach once  
again taking her by complete surprise. She managed to retain the presence of  
mind this time and successfully fought the urge to grab the pistol in her lap.  
A quick thought crossed her mind, causing her to look down at it to see why it  
hadn't fired when she pulled the trigger. Not that she was arguing it at this  
point in time, but still....  
  
Huh, she thought as she saw that the pin had been partially pulled out and  
locked in an open position. Now when did I do that? Her attempt at searching  
her memories lasted for precisely three-tenths of a second before the white-hot  
stinging sensation of antiseptic being applied to her wound shot through her  
entire nervous system like a lightning bolt.  
  
"YEOW!" she yelped as she lurched back, her abrupt movements causing her  
pistol to slide out of her lap. It would have hit the floor if D hadn't caught  
it, his hand seeming to move in a literal blur as it shot out to grab it.  
  
"Hold still," he said impassively as he flipped the weapon around to hold  
it by the barrel, offering the grip to her even as his other hand started to  
reach out to dab her shoulder.  
  
"My ass!" she retorted as she leaned back, giving him a dark look. "That  
stuff hurt like hell. Thanks," she added in a fractionally softer tone as she  
took the offered pistol from him.  
  
He just gave her a distinctly patient look before capping the bottle of  
antiseptic and setting it on the floor. He left the pile of gauze lying next  
to it and stood up, turning away from her once again to head back to his bed.  
  
"D?" she called out to him, surprising the both of them with the sudden  
softness to her tone. He paused to cast a glance over his shoulder at her,  
again giving her a patient look. "Thanks for waking me up."  
  
"It will be another hour or two until sunset," he said as he crossed the  
room and stretched out on his bed. "It would be best if you were to remain in  
bed and try to rest until dawn."  
  
"That's a long time to try to sleep," she pointed out as she slipped the  
pistol back under her pillow. She received silence in reply, broken only by  
the soft rustle of the blankets as he pulled them back over his body. "So I  
take it you're going to do the same?" she inquired.  
  
The soft silence seemed to hang in the air for a number of moments before  
she finally heard his voice drift back to her though the semi-darkness. "As  
you said, digging a hole in the floor is not an option, so I will have to rest  
as much as I can. Good night," he added, his tone changing to indicate that he  
was finished talking for the moment.  
  
A sour grumble rose up from her chest. "Good night, D," she replied with  
a hint of sarcasm as she laid back against the pillow. A faint twinge of pain  
shot through her shoulder a moment later, causing her to cast an irritated look  
at the wound. She was fairly sure it was finished sealing itself, and that it  
would only reopen if she started exerting herself fairly hard.  
  
Bah, let it dry out, she thought to herself as she closed her eyes. She  
knew that she would fall back asleep soon, and that the nightmares would likely  
come back, but something told her that if they did, D would wake her up again.  
A dark knight coming to rescue a damsel in distress, she thought to herself in  
a somewhat bitterly ironic tone. Yeah, like I'm really a maiden he'd come to  
free from the clutches of evil. Well.... maybe we'd have the rescue part, she  
added, feeling a very faint blush cross her cheeks before she quietly slipped  
back into the realm of subconscious dreams.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
She could remember waking up on at least three different occasions after  
that, twice bursting into sweaty consciousness to escape the horrid clutches of  
some evil vampire minion and once because her bladder was quietly begging for  
some relief. Each time she rose into a sitting position, she could hear the  
soft rustle of blankets from across the room as D turned to study her, his gaze  
seeming to bore through her very soul as he assessed her condition.  
  
Twice earlier she had made a gesture to him, indicating that she was both  
awake and in possession of her wits. Each time he seemed to nod in reply to  
her before closing his eyes, never once appearing to have been caught asleep.  
She found a sense of relief washing over her each time, somehow feeling at ease  
knowing that he was watching over her. It made little sense, to be honest, as  
she knew she could take care of herself, but there was just something about the  
whole thing that made going back to sleep a little easier each time.  
  
The third incident had necessitated her getting out of bed to head over to  
the cramped toilet. She could feel his gaze following her every movement as  
she crossed the room, the intense sensation of being watched finally leaving  
her as she opened the door to the bathroom. Business was promptly dealt with  
and flushed, keeping the door shut until the water was finished sloshing around  
so as not to disturb the vampire-hunter any more than necessary.  
  
She took her time crossing the room on her way back, barely able to see  
her hand in front of her face in the gloom. She had been able to see just fine  
going in, but she had flipped on the light while she was in there and ruined  
her nightvision.  
  
She looked around the cabin as she waited for her eyes to slowly readjust,  
a slight frown crossing her face as something seemed out of place. She held  
still as she tried to listen, realizing a moment later that she could hear the  
gentle howling of the storm raging outside. Nasty bastard, she thought as she  
edged towards the window, nudging one of the slats aside to peek out at the  
landscape. It was absolutely pitch-dark outside, making her wonder for a brief  
moment if something was eating the entire cabin. Bah, she grunted, sand worms  
aren't THAT big. I hope....  
  
A slight whispering noise her caused her to turn around, one hand straying  
down to the webbing on her thigh to touch the hilt of her knife. She blinked  
hard as she realized it was D, seeming to be muttering something in his sleep.  
Curious, she edged a little closer to his bed, straining her hearing to the  
limit to try to make out what he was saying.  
  
Hmmm? she thought with a mental blink as she heard a whispered name. A  
physical blink followed a moment later as she could make out the shadowed lines  
of his face, seeming to be twisted into a dark grimace. Her grip on her knife  
tightened as his lips parted for an instant, giving her a brief glimpse of what  
could only be the elongated incisors of a vampiric entity.  
  
"D?" she called out in a hesitant tone, unsure of whether waking him up  
would be a wise idea. She gasped and jumped back as his eyes snapped open an  
instant later, revealing a very faint but noticeable blue glow to his corneas.  
He blinked and quickly refocused, the luminescence vanishing from his eyes as  
he looked over at her.  
  
It took her a second to snap out of the hypnosis of the moment. "D, you  
looked like you were having a nightmare," she explained in a hesitant tone as  
she edged back. She blinked as he rose into a sitting position, able to see  
the haunted expression on his face a little more clearly.  
  
"Thank you," he rasped quietly as he focused on the far wall. He seemed  
to stare at it, almost as if he was trying to burn a hole in it through sheer  
willpower alone before blinking and looking over at her again.  
  
She noticed his expression changing in a subtle way, one eyebrow moving  
upwards a fraction of a millimeter as he studied her. It took her a moment to  
determine that he was looking at the knife sheath tied to her thigh....  
  
....which she just realized was clearly visible because the entire right  
side of the nightgown had been pushed up to her hip when she had grabbed the  
weapon's hilt several moments ago. Which meant the borrowed panties were also  
out on display as well. Oops.  
  
"What are you looking at?" she demanded in a flat tone as she tugged the  
nightgown back into a more modest position as quickly as she could, feeling a  
dark blush rising to her cheeks.  
  
"Triple-folded carbon-edged titanium," he said calmly, looking up into her  
eyes with an utterly unreadable expression on his face. He watched in silence  
as her expression underwent an amazing evolution, displaying no less than four  
distinct emotions all within the span of less than a full second.  
  
"It's served me well," she said acidly, doing her best to get the blush  
off of her face and knowing she was failing quite miserably. She paused for a  
moment as he simply nodded in understanding to her before lying back down, one  
arm moving back to briefly fluff the pillow before being folded against his  
bare chest once again.  
  
What the hell? she raged on the inside, not able to even guess at what he  
might have been thinking. Okay, so you can tell blade types by looking at them  
in pitch-darkness, good for you. You honestly expect me to believe that's all  
you were looking at? Bad enough you had my top open earlier and took your time  
leering at me, but that's all you're going to say about it? Just casually make  
a remark about my knife and try to go back to sleep? What the hell?  
  
She fairly stormed over to her bed and sat down, casting a poisonous glare  
over at his dark form. She snorted softly in contempt and laid down, absently  
bunching the sheets up around her. She cast a final glance across the room  
before turning her back to him, drawing her knees up to her chest and wondering  
just what the hell she was getting so worked up over.  
  
It took her a long time to fall back asleep, her thoughts continuing to  
quietly simmer even as her state of exhaustion pulled her once more into the  
realm of the subconscious. The dreams would return later, of course, but for  
the moment all she could think about was him. The look in his glowing eyes in  
that first instant she woke him up, the glimpse of his darker side she caught  
when his lips had parted, and look on his face as he studied her in the faint  
illumination of the storm-shrouded cabin.  
  
And, oddly enough, the single name she thought he had whispered....  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
There came a point in which the body, worn out as it was, simply wouldn't  
accept further sleep and forced the mind back into full consciousness. Leila  
could tell that was the case as she slowly drifted back into awareness, able to  
almost physically feel the veil of sleep falling away from her and knowing that  
it wouldn't be returning anytime soon.  
  
"Great," she moaned in a near-whisper as she tried to move. Her body felt  
unusually stiff as she forced her muscles to cooperate, eventually rising into  
a sitting position that immediately prompted a lengthy yawn. The smell in the  
air hit her a moment later, seeming to be the stench of something that had been  
well and truly burnt to charcoal.  
  
"Yeech," she muttered as she looked around the room. An icy chill crept  
into her blood as she realized that the other bed was completely empty. "D?"  
she called out, unconsciously reaching for the pistol under her pillow. She  
cast a quick glance at it and flicked her thumb over the firing pin, shoving it  
back into place with a deep click.  
  
She wasn't sure which bothered her more, the heavy smell in the air or the  
fact that D wasn't anywhere to be seen. She had seen what both Meier Link and  
Carmilla could do in terms of altering their bodies, turning flesh into steel  
in Meier's case and disassociating her body into a cloud of bats in Carmilla's,  
and was deeply worried about what D might be able to do. "D?" she called out  
in an even louder voice as she carefully edged out of bed, holding her pistol  
in a tight grip.  
  
She blinked hard as she heard the muted sound of a toilet being flushed,  
shortly followed by the bathroom door being opened. You stupid fool, she told  
herself as she sagged back down onto the bed, her breath leaving her lungs in  
a mad exodus of relief. She looked up with a sheepish expression on her face  
as D left the bathroom, still wearing only the form-hugging boxers and giving  
her a slightly curious look.  
  
"Sorry, I.... didn't know where you were," she apologized quietly, feeling  
the heat of a mild blush rising to her face. "I thought you had left or....  
whatever," she said, waving her pistol in a gesture of dismissal. She paused  
as she realized that she was still holding it tightly, the blush on her face  
deepening as she discreetly set it aside.  
  
He looked at her for another moment before turning around and moving over  
to the oven. She blinked as she realized that he had apparently been cooking  
something, leaning over to one side to try to see around him. "Hey, what are  
you making?" she called out, wrinkling her nose slightly as she caught another  
whiff of the heavy carbon smell. "Smells like you burnt the hell out of it,  
whatever it is."  
  
"It's just something previously spilled in the oven," D replied calmly.  
  
She nodded her head in understanding, absently running her fingers through  
the tangles in her blonde hair. "Okay, I can buy that explanation," she said  
languidly, idly studying the muscular curves of his arms and back. "So what's  
for breakfast?"  
  
"Meat and potatoes," he said simply.  
  
She waited to see if he would explain further, a disgruntled look crossing  
her face when she realized that he wasn't going to elaborate further. "Sounds  
good," she said in a neutral tone. "You cook often?"  
  
"When possible," was the unemotional reply.  
  
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You're not the talkative type,  
I see," she said in a sarcastic tone, drawing a brief sidelong glance from the  
dunpeal. "If we're going to be stuck here together until this storm finishes,  
we can at least try to get to know one another. I don't know about you, but I  
know I'm going to get really bored, really quickly if there's nothing to do  
aside from stare at the walls of this place."  
  
"Tend to your shoulder," he suggested calmly as he took a step back to  
check on how things were inside the oven.  
  
She stared at his back for a number of moments before looking down at the  
wooden floor, grunting very quietly as she saw the bottle of antiseptic right  
where he had left it last night. Or was it still night? she wondered as she  
cast a quick glance up at the window.  
  
D had opened the curtains again, revealing the same pitch-black desolation  
she had seen the last time she had gotten out of bed. "Hey, what time is it?"  
she asked as she bent down to pick up the bottle and the gauze padding.  
  
"Probably a good two hours before sunrise," he replied as he grabbed a  
hand towel and opened the oven door. He pulled out a flat baking tray and set  
it on top of the stove before switching off the heating element.  
  
So a new day begins, she thought to herself as she sat back up with a soft  
sigh, not looking forward to this in the least. She removed the cap and soaked  
a gauze pad in the pale yellow solution before bringing it up to her shoulder,  
closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.  
  
D turned to cast a slightly concerned glance over his shoulder as he heard  
her harsh gasp of pain. Even from across the room he could see the color in  
her face draining away, leaving her with a deathly pale countenance. The soft  
words that followed were decidedly unfeminine at best, but he had learned long  
ago that what constituted 'feminine' was widely open to interpretation.  
  
"Yeah, that's going to leave a nice scar," she muttered to herself as the  
worst of the searing agony faded down to a more tolerable level. She continued  
to dab more of the antiseptic on the wound until it quit stinging, indicating  
that any germs or whatever that had been present were now thoroughly deceased.  
Of course, it also meant that the nerves were now shell-shocked into numbness,  
but they would wake back up soon enough.  
  
The cap had just been screwed back on the bottle of antiseptic when a dark  
shadow fell across her lap, causing her to jerk her head up. The sight of D  
standing less than two feet away startled the hell out of her, almost causing  
her to drop the bottle on the floor.  
  
"God DAMMIT, D!" she fumed once she was sure that her heart was fine and  
her bladder still had a firm grip on things. "If you sneak up on me like that  
once more, I swear I'm going to shoot you!"  
  
He gave her a neutral look as he held out a plate. A sizable chunk of  
meat sat next to a pile of seasoned diced potatoes, both steaming slightly in  
the still air of the cabin. A knife and fork rested on one edge of the plate,  
both the utensils and ceramic plate seeming to have had better days.  
  
The aroma wafted up to her a moment later, seeming to tickle her nose in  
a most tantalizing fashion. Her mouth immediately began to water as her empty  
stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten much of anything within the past day  
or two. She had no idea what kind of meat it was, but it would have been an  
outright lie to say she really gave a damn at that point.  
  
"Thank you," she said gratefully as she set the gauze aside to accept the  
offered plate. A faint twinkle of amusement appeared in her eyes as she looked  
up at him, the corners of her mouth twitching into a ghost of a smile. "It's  
been awhile since someone served me breakfast in bed," she said coyly.  
  
Her mood evaporated somewhat when he turned away from her without saying  
a word, apparently heading back to the stove for a second plate. Shaking her  
head to herself, she carefully balanced the plate on her knees and began to  
devour the meal with ravenous hunger. The mystery meat turned out to be rather  
tender venison, while the seasoning applied to the potatoes was a decidedly  
delicious blend of ground peppercorn, paprika, basil, and rosemary.  
  
The soft sound of the other bed creaking beneath a heavy weight startled  
her, her reflexive tensing coming dangerously close to dumping the plate onto  
the floor. She reached out to steady it with both hands, lifting her head up  
to give D a venomous glare.  
  
"Look," she said testily, "Will you quit moving around like a ghost all  
the time? Start making some noise or something so I know where you are."  
  
He looked back up at her, his face impassive as he regarded her coolly.  
"Vampires have far better hearing than humans," he pointed out with just the  
faintest hint of an edge to his otherwise neutral tone. "When hunting them,  
one learns to make moving as silently as possible an unconscious and automatic  
action. I apologize if I keep disturbing you."  
  
She blinked as his words made perfect sense to her. "Oh," she replied in  
a quiet tone, her cheeks taking on a very light blush. "I guess I can see your  
point when you phrase it like that." She paused before she added, "This is  
good stuff, by the way," making a gesture with a potato-laden fork. "Family  
recipe or something?" she said without thinking.  
  
It immediately became obvious that it was the wrong thing to have said.  
A dark, almost haunted look seemed to cross his face for a split-second before  
it vanished, being replaced with a distinctly cold veiled look. "No," he said  
in a level tone. His voice had remained the same, but at the same time there  
had been an undercurrent of emotion that she wasn't able to identify.  
  
Leila blinked and seemed to wilt slightly, knowing she had just made a  
tremendous error. "D, I'm sorry," she apologized quietly as she set the plate  
aside. "I know you're a dunpeal and all, but.... I...." She sighed heavily as  
she realized that she was only digging herself deeper, trying to think of how  
she could switch tactics to ease the situation.  
  
"I know I told you about my parents," she said quietly, looking away from  
him as she tried to find the right words. "About what drove me to become a  
vampire-hunter like yourself. I know we haven't talked about ourselves much,  
but I feel like.... like you know me better than I know you. After all that we  
went through together since we met.... I almost feel guilty that I don't know  
very much about you, almost like I haven't bothered to take the time to stop  
and get to know the person who.... who saved my life."  
  
The silence stretched on before he finally spoke up. "You know all there  
is to know about me that is important," he said quietly. "I am a dunpeal and  
a hunter of vampires. You know why I hunt them. Nothing else matters."  
  
"Actually, I don't know why you hunt vampires," she countered, looking up  
at him. She blinked as she again saw the haunted, almost forlorn look cross  
his face for a brief instant. "I understand the need to exterminate them, but  
you never told me why you decided to pick up a sword. Tell me, D, what is it  
that drives you to pursue those blood-thirsty creatures of the night?"  
  
She blinked as he suddenly set his plate aside and stood up, appearing to  
try to cross the room in her direction. Her hand was already halfway to her  
pistol when she realized that he was merely moving over to the window, staring  
out into the featureless gloom of the sandstorm.  
  
Even with the reflection slightly distorted by the glass, she could still  
see the look of concealed pain on his face. It suddenly occurred to her that  
her choice of words might have been taken the wrong way, seen as an affront to  
his vampiric heritage. She was about to try to call out to him, to apologize  
for possibly hurting his feelings when she saw him start to take in a breath.  
  
"I have no choice," he said simply.  
  
She frowned as she remembered him saying something like that awhile ago,  
back when she had buried him up to his neck in the ground when he needed to  
recover from extensive sun exposure. She had said that the rain had made her  
sentimental, which was why she had told him about her past. "D, that doesn't  
make any sense," she spoke up. "We all have choices in our lives."  
  
"You have choices in your life," he countered gently, still staring out  
into the utter darkness. Perhaps he could see something she couldn't, but it  
didn't seem to matter at this point. "You can be whatever you want to be. A  
hunter, a farmer, a wife, a mother."  
  
"That'll be the day," she muttered dryly.  
  
"You're human," D said in an even quieter tone than usual. "I'm not. I  
will never be accepted into a human society because of my father's blood. You  
sought to exploit that yourself when you stirred the sheriff and the townsfolk  
against me."  
  
He had said it in a calm tone, but hearing the reminder of how she had  
tried to delay his pursuit of Meier's carriage brought a fierce rush of shame  
to her. She glanced away from the window, feeling her face become unbearably  
warm as her complexion turned crimson.  
  
"Yeah," she said sullenly. "About that one.... I'm sorry I did that to  
you, D." She paused as the memory of what she had heard back then rushed back  
to her, causing her to glance over at him. "I heard what that old man said  
about you, and about what happened in that town ages ago. D.... just how old  
are you?" she asked carefully.  
  
The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity before he sighed softly,  
almost too softly for her to hear. "I don't remember," he replied. "Time has  
little meaning to me anymore. My end will only come through a deliberate act,  
when I either lose my battle against the vampire menace or when my blood alone  
holds the blood-curse and another hunter finishes the task for me. All that  
passes before are merely steps along the path I must walk."  
  
He cast an impassive glance into the window as she stood up, crossing the  
room to stand behind him. It seemed that she might have tried to reach out to  
him, to touch him or hold him, before she looked up to see his visage in the  
reflection.  
  
"D?" she asked in a shocked whisper. "But how.... how do you cope with  
all that? With the constant loss of friends over time or.... or even family,"  
she added in a very soft tone. "How do you deal with all that pain?"  
  
"The pain of what?" he inquired calmly. "I don't understand."  
  
"What about the people you meet, the lives you've saved?" she said. "I  
know you're not heartless, D. You helped me several times when you didn't have  
to or even when it wouldn't have been in your best interests to. You bound my  
shoulder wound when we were competing against one another," she pointed out.  
"Surely that means something to you.... or does it?" she added as she received  
only silence in response. "D, tell me you've made friends somewhere in your  
life, however long it is...."  
  
She fell silent as he very subtly shook his head, his gaze focused on the  
outside world rather than her reflection in the window. "There can't be," he  
said. "I am a hunter, born from two worlds and rejected by both. Humans fear  
me and vampires know what I've done in the past. There can be no bridges to  
tie me to either, no-one to try to do so."  
  
"So you're saying you can't have friends, is that it?" she asked softly.  
"Can't meet someone who might accept you for who you are, rest of the world be  
damned? I think that's bullshit, D."  
  
He glanced at her reflection for a moment before looking away in obvious  
dismissal. "Believe what you will," he said in a calm voice. "I know what my  
existence is, and what it must always remain."  
  
A wave of anger seemed to bloom in her blood as she looked at the back of  
his head, not believing that he was simply dismissing the idea out of hand. A  
memory from earlier surfaced in her mind, and it took her a moment to decide if  
she really wanted to risk the delicate understanding she thought she had. "I  
think you're lying," she said in a low tone. She waited until he glanced at  
her reflection as she expected before adding, "If you really believe all that,  
then explain to me who Doris is."  
  
He turned around to look at her so quickly that she literally did not see  
the rest of his body move. One instant he was staring out into the storm, and  
the next she found herself staring deep into his eyes.... eyes filled with an  
amount of pain the likes of which she had only seen in fleeting glimpses on the  
faces of the dying.  
  
The look in his eyes was veiled a moment later as he blinked, but the mere  
memory of his pain was more than enough to leave her chilled to the core. He  
seemed to stare deep into her soul, not even seeming to breathe for a number of  
moments before his lips finally parted.  
  
"Where did you hear that name?" he asked in a very low tone. It wasn't  
delivered in a threatening manner, but she nonetheless got the impression that  
she would be in considerable trouble if she didn't answer him.  
  
"I heard you whisper her name in your sleep earlier," she replied in a  
frank tone, returning the penetrating stare with a level look. "I figured she  
must have meant something to you somewhere along the line. What's the problem,  
hunter?" she said as he started to turn away, causing him to halt in mid-motion  
and glance back at her. "Don't tell me this whole spiel about not wanting any  
friends is because you were hurt by a woman...."  
  
She had intended to prod him into taking the bait, to rise to her verbal  
challenge and explain that particular part of his past. The momentary wave of  
visible anger crossing his face she expected, having a measure of faith in his  
self-control to not rip her throat out or anything like that. What she didn't  
expect, however, was to see his wall of isolation visibly crumble, exposing the  
depths of his innermost pain to her.  
  
"Doris didn't hurt me," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I.... I hurt her."  
  
She blinked hard and edged back from him, her blue eyes clearly revealing  
the wide range of emotions running through her. "What?" she asked, suddenly  
not so sure that prodding him had been a good idea. She remained silent as he  
turned from her, looking back out into the darkness once more. "Tell me," she  
finally whispered, fighting the urge to reach out to touch him.  
  
An eternity seemed to pass before she finally heard his voice drifting up  
from his chest once again. "Very well," he said, taking a deep breath before  
beginning to speak of a part of his past which he had never dared to reveal to  
anyone else before....  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"She came to me as I passed by," he said very quietly, the steady tone of  
his voice belied only by the haggard look on his face. "She had been bitten by  
a vampire, Count Magnus Lee, and wanted to hire me to kill him. I accepted and  
she took me to her home so that I could prepare us both for the coming ordeal.  
  
"She told me many things that night, about the vampire and about herself.  
I knew that the Moon of Blood would be full on the horizon the next day, and  
that Count Lee would likely try to take her as his bride that night. I put her  
into a deep sleep to resist his summons before I set out into the night.  
  
"I met the Count's daughter Ramika and her mutant escort Rei Ganci as they  
attempted to attack Doris' house. I drove them back and waited for the sun to  
rise before entering the castle. While I was inside, the Count had several of  
his minions kidnap Doris in broad daylight, bringing her to the castle even as  
I fought against his traps and minions beneath the castle catacombs.  
  
"I was able to rescue her before the sun set, making sure that they would  
be unable to immediately follow us. I brought her back to her house and made  
her comfortable, knowing that things were far from over. The trauma of being  
kidnapped and rescued must have taken a toll on her, but she somehow overcame  
it all and expressed a desire to remain by my side.  
  
"The next day, her younger brother Dan was kidnapped by Rei and I left to  
go find him. Ramika laid a trap for Doris in my absence, turning one of her  
closest friends into a vampire to lure her out into the open. I was able to  
return with Dan in time to spoil the trap, but the loss of Doris' friend had  
already hit her fairly hard.  
  
"She came to me that night, asking me not to put myself at risk for her  
any longer. She said that she was in love with me and wanted us to escape to  
a place beyond Count Lee's domain where he couldn't pursue her. She persisted  
when I refused her, seeking to embrace me for comfort. I...."  
  
Leila remained silent as D trailed off, clearly having a difficult time  
trying to tell that part of his story. "I was still exhausted from earlier  
events," he finally said quietly. "Weakened, I almost bit her by accident as  
I held her. She knew of my hunger and offered herself to me, but I refused.  
  
"Rei Ganci returned in the morning, bearing an enchanted candle that was  
harmful to vampires. Even though I was a dunpeal, the searing light and the  
choking scent of its incense was still strong enough to paralyze me. He drove  
a wooden stake into my chest, thinking that it would kill me. It nearly did.  
  
"Night had fallen before I was able to recover with the aid of.... a part  
of what I have become. Count Lee himself had apparently come to claim Doris,  
taking her back to his castle in order to make her a vampire. I pursued him  
across the barren lands as fast as I could, barely making it in time to stop  
him from taking her blood once again.  
  
"He was an ancient vampire over ten thousand years old and possessing a  
level of power that I had never encountered before. My own vampire blood is  
strong because of who my father was, but even it was almost not enough to kill  
the Count. He grabbed my sword as I went to strike, snapping the tip off and  
throwing it into my chest.  
  
"Barely healed from the battle with Rei, I was again brought to the brink  
of death. I was able to impale the Count against the wall, however, piercing  
his dark heart up to the hilt. Doris and Dan helped me leave the castle as it  
crumbled around us, much as Carmilla's castle did when she was truly destroyed.  
Ramika remained behind to die in peace, having learned that she herself was a  
dunpeal and not wishing to continue her existence.  
  
"It was dawn by the time we returned to Doris' house, but I remember very  
little of the day as it passed. Night had fallen when Doris came to me, saying  
she couldn't sleep. She tried to comfort me after all I had gone through for  
her, knowing I was still badly wounded. She offered herself to me again....  
only this time, I couldn't refuse her."  
  
Several moments passed in heavy silence before D was able to speak again.  
"She offered her blood to me to restore my strength, and I accepted. I knew  
doing so hurt her, but she insisted that it was alright, that she wanted to  
help me after I had helped her. She held onto me, and after awhile I carried  
her upstairs to put her to bed.  
  
"It hadn't been my intention to stay, but she bade me to do so.... and I  
could not refuse her. The call of her blood was too strong, the call of her  
woman's blood as it flowed with the phases of the moon. She offered herself  
to me as a woman, telling me she wanted me there before she kissed me. And as  
before, I was unable to resist her deepest desires."  
  
Again a heavy silence surrounded him for a number of moments, his eyes now  
closed as he struggled to retain what little composure he had left. "I will  
not say I didn't want to take her, but blood calls to blood and so I could not  
have resisted the call her moon blood even if I wanted to. It was the first  
time for the both of us and the only time for me.  
  
"When her blood had cooled, I told her the truth about why I had yielded  
to her. I should have told her earlier, before this all happened, but I failed  
to do so. The truth behind it hurt her, causing her pain in a way that could  
never be bandaged and treated as easily as a mark on the flesh could. I was  
ashamed of myself, ashamed that I had not only allowed her to come to harm but  
that I was the one that inflicted the most harm upon her.  
  
"She bade me to stay with her that night, to hold and comfort her. The  
call of her moon blood had faded by then and I was free to deny her request as  
I wished. I stayed with her that night, but I left before the sun began to  
rise the next day. I....  
  
"I never saw her again," he said, his voice barely a whisper now, "But the  
shame and the guilt of hurting her still remains with me. Her memory will be  
with me until the end of my existence, and her pain will haunt me until it is  
erased only by the embrace of oblivion. I simply cannot allow that to happen  
to anyone else again. I will not allow it."  
  
He continued to stare out into the darkness for a number of moments before  
reaching down to his side, picking up the scabbard of his sword. The well-worn  
metal made a soft hissing noise as he withdrew it part-way, exposing about a  
foot of the blade above the hilt.  
  
"This sword once belonged to her father," he said quietly, studying the  
heavily distorted image of his own reflection in the metallic edge. "She gave  
it to me after I had lost my sword killing Count Lee. I have kept it with me  
since, using it to put an end to all the evil that I have encountered. I keep  
it not because of its use, but because it makes me remember what I have done  
and serves as a reminder that I must not allow it to happen again."  
  
He fell silent as he studied the blade, watching as the dark blur of his  
reflection disappeared inch by inch as he slid it back into the scabbard. He  
didn't look up into the window again until he had set the weapon back down to  
lean against the edge of the bed, making sure it wouldn't fall over.  
  
"D?" he heard Leila whisper behind him as he saw her reflection in the  
window once again. He felt the light touch on his arm just as he saw the lone  
tear in her eye, leaving a faint glittering trail as it fell across her cheek.  
Part of him immediately wanted nothing to do with this anymore, knowing that  
once a woman started to cry her emotional mood became dangerously unstable and  
completely unpredictable. And given the events of recent days, he wasn't in  
much of a mood for surprises.  
  
He didn't know what it was that allowed him to yield to her touch, to let  
her turn him around to face one another. He could clearly see the sorrow in  
her blue eyes, a second tear in the process of forming as she looked up at him.  
  
"D?" she repeated softly. Her lower lip started to quiver for a moment  
before she suddenly took in a deep breath. "What a crock of shit."  
  
The only thing D could possibly think of was the warning given to him by  
an elderly man in the past who had only sought to dispense some sage advice.  
Remember, my boy, once those women-folk start crying, anything goes.  
  
Anything.  
  
"How can you think that you hurt her?" Leila went on, her voice slowly  
firming up with each passing moment. "She told you that she wanted you, told  
you several times it seems. How in the hell is giving her what she wants like  
that hurting her?"  
  
"It shouldn't have been that way," he replied quietly.  
  
"No, it shouldn't," she countered firmly. "What you should have done is  
opened yourself up to her to give her the kind of comfort she really needed.  
And I know you're capable of that, D, I KNOW you are simply because of all  
the compassion you've shown me. Or are you going to try to stand there and  
tell me to my face that you were just doing your duty and it wasn't your human  
heart telling you something?"  
  
He just looked at her, trying to figure out what she was getting at. He  
was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that there was far deeper meaning to  
her outburst than was readily apparent. He felt a very subtle twitch from his  
left hand, causing him to reflexively ball it into a fist to keep it quiet.  
  
She stared into his eyes before sighing quietly, seeing that he really  
wasn't getting it. Not knowing what else to do, she gave in to the impulse to  
hug him, gently wrapping her arms around his waist and lightly resting her head  
on his bare shoulder.  
  
"It's a human need, D," she tried to explain to him. "We need to be held  
by others now and then, just as we need to reach out to hold them. It helps us  
realize that we are not alone, that we are never truly alone. I believe your  
human side knows that, even if you don't...."  
  
He remained perfectly still as he mulled over the wisdom to her words. If  
what she said was true, at least about him as he didn't doubt it applied to  
humans, it would explain a good measure of the conflicting impulses that filled  
his mind every so often. His decision to bind her shoulder wound after her  
foolish assault on Meier Link's carriage had been made after a brief struggle  
against just such an impulse. The hunter in him had wanted to let Darwinism  
take its course, but something else had urged him to help her regardless of the  
impact it would have on his odds of successfully rescuing Charlotte.  
  
He gazed at her impassively as she lifted her head from his shoulder, her  
blue eyes studying his face with a look of guarded curiosity and faint hope.  
He could easily follow the very subtle movements of her pupils as they changed  
diameter when she let her gaze wander over his features, seeming to study his  
own eyes before moving slightly to examine his ears.  
  
He knew that he had changed since his entrance into adulthood and that,  
eternal lifespan aside, he would continue to change as the centuries passed.  
His skin had become noticeably pale from spending less time exposed to the sun  
than a human would, and the constant use of the innate powers of his father's  
dark blood had started to mold him into the physical shape of a vampire. It  
had bothered him at first when his ears had developed the hallmark points of a  
true vampire, but that too was eventually accepted as just another price of the  
sin of being born with a vampire's blood in his veins.  
  
"Anyone ever tell you that you're rather handsome?" Leila murmured in a  
very soft tone, still studying his face intently.  
  
He looked at her for a moment before nodding, a simple and subtle gesture  
of his chin that might have gone unnoticed if she hadn't been watching him.  
The vast majority of the people he had managed to save from a fate worse than  
death at the hands of a vampire had been women, and more than a few had felt  
compelled to comment on their rescuer once the threat had been dealt with. It  
was something he took in stride, chalking it up to an overwhelming abundance of  
gratitude rather than genuine interest. There might have been a little of that  
as well, but he had paid scant attention to whatever they might have wanted.  
Even when it had been made clearly obvious, as he remembered a pair of sisters  
brazenly doing in the not-too-distant past after he had rescued them from an  
unusually sadistic vampire....  
  
Had he not allowed himself to reflect on that situation, letting his focus  
of the present briefly slip into his memories of the past, he might have been  
able to notice the warning signs sooner. The tightening of her embrace around  
him was enough to refocus his attention on her presence, but by then it was  
already too late to take any pre-emptive action against her.  
  
He couldn't tell if she had moved slowly and he failed to notice, or if  
she had moved quickly to take him by surprise. Either way, his mind had just  
finished processing the meaning of her movements when he felt her lips lightly  
brush against his, a gesture as warily cautious as it was tentatively curious.  
  
She immediately froze as he tensed and jerked his head back from her, his  
eyelids barely seeming to twitch as they blinked faster than she could follow.  
The expected reaction of surprise was swiftly replaced with action, both her  
arms suddenly going numb as his wrists clamped down on her upper arms with an  
incredible amount of strength. A look of ferocity seemed to flicker in the  
depths of his eyes before they cleared, being replaced by a piercing glare of  
reproachment.  
  
"Hey," she said very softly as he edged away from her, his breath audibly  
rasping in his throat as he inhaled. "Easy, I was.... just...." Words failed  
her as she stared into the depths of his eyes, whatever hints of openness or  
pain she might have seen earlier now hidden behind a chilling veil of silence.  
  
The silence seemed to build in intensity as they looked at one another,  
growing so heavy that she soon found it difficult to breathe. She was giving  
serious consideration to stepping further away from him, to try to open up the  
air between them so she could get some oxygen, before he moved back on his own  
and let go of her.  
  
A very faint tingle promptly coursed through her nerves as the flow of  
blood was restored, running the full length of her arms from her shoulders down  
to her fingertips. It was a distinctly odd sensation, seeming to be a blend  
of fire, ice, and electricity that somehow warmed her even as it left behind a  
chilling numbness. She discreetly flexed her hands as he turned away from her,  
staring back out once more into the impenetrable gloom that existed beyond the  
panes of glass in the window.  
  
"D...." she said, her voice barely the ghost of a whisper. She wanted to  
plead with him not to turn away from her, not to reject her offer of comfort  
and solace. The words about his past continued to burn in her mind, not the  
story itself but the deep pain that clearly haunted him over his actions. All  
she wanted to was to help him as he helped her, to try to ease that dark pain  
and bring peace to the voice that no doubt resonated inside his skull like the  
rattling chains of a ghost bound to his very soul....  
  
"You should finish eating before it gets cold," he said, his somber tone  
seemingly devoid of any warmth or emotion. The reflection of his eyes in the  
window, however, told her all she needed to know about his mood.  
  
She didn't know what to say, knowing that she had pushed the limits just  
one step too far. She looked up at him before nodding in understanding, one  
hand coming up to briefly squeeze his elbow. The gesture had been automatic,  
happening before she even realized she was doing it. She wasn't sure if she  
caught a change in his expression at the contact or not, but she knew that it  
would only make matters worse if she pressed the issue.  
  
At least.... for the moment.  
  
Sighing quietly, she returned to her bed and sat down, absently reaching  
for the all-but-forgotten plate of venison and potatoes. Her mind seemed to  
shift into an auto-pilot mode, letting her body tend to the motions of eating  
without conscious thought or even retaining a discernable memory of doing so.  
  
She knew he had opened himself to her, probably in a way that he had not,  
could not have done so to someone else before. The pain he revealed to her had  
been immense, a dark and secret burden that no human could have borne for so  
long by themselves without being driven mad or worse. It made her own troubled  
thoughts seem trivial by comparison, and deep in her heart, in a place she had  
only recently rediscovered with D's unintentional help, she felt a need come to  
life, a need to reach out to this dark and lonely hunter to comfort him, to  
help him heal what no bandage could protect, to make him whole.  
  
The only question was how. Not if she should, or if she would, but only  
how she could go about doing so. The thoughts continued to swirl in her mind  
even as her body finished its automatic task, setting the empty plate down in  
an out-of-the-way spot on the floor and laying down on her side. Her eyes  
remained open but unfocused, seeing something on the inside and thus failing to  
see the blue glow briefly return to his eyes.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
D simply had no idea how much time passed between when Leila had laid down  
and when that thing in his arm began to twitch with restlessness. His mind had  
simply disconnected itself from his surroundings as he thought, all the input  
from his sensory organs going into his short-term memory for processing being  
promptly disposed of the nanosecond they registered. What finally snapped him  
out of his darkened thoughts was the psionic humming it started to make, not  
loud enough to be audibly heard but still strong enough to be mentally felt.  
  
It continued to try to get his attention even as he made a fist, the usual  
indication he gave it to shut up and leave him alone. Sighing in resignation,  
he cast a brief glance at Leila's idle form before heading over to the bathroom  
for a private conversation, trying to remain as silent as possible so as not to  
disturb her from the thoughts that he could almost literally read for himself  
as they passed over her unfocused eyes.  
  
((D, listen,)) it said the instant the door was closed. ((I've been saying  
all along what she just said, you didn't hurt Doris. !!!))  
  
D said nothing as he wrapped his right hand around his fist, putting as  
much pressure on it as he possibly could. He could feel both the knuckles and  
the tendons in his hand start to reach the breaking point, coming dangerously  
close to imploding beneath the pressure.  
  
"Enough," he rasped, his vision taking on a blue haze as his vampiric side  
started to break free from the controlling grip of his willpower. He could  
feel his teeth changing, elongating into sharp fangs intended solely for the  
purpose of piercing soft flesh to draw forth the crimson nectar of life....  
  
((D!)) it pleaded with him, the voice audibly fighting to function as its  
physical form was twisted into a shape it wasn't designed to be in. ((LET....  
HER.... HELP.... YOU.... BE.... HUMAN...!))  
  
He didn't know why he relented his bone-crushing grip, easing just enough  
to remove the danger of imminent bodily harm to both himself and the thing. It  
wasn't the pain searing his wrist, or the sound of his blood echoing in his  
ears at a near-boiling point, but perhaps the realization that there just might  
be the faintest hint of truth to what it was saying, the tiniest spark of hope  
yet for that which he knew was beyond his reach but nonetheless kept fighting  
to grasp.  
  
((That's.... all she.... wants to do,)) it panted, an undercurrent of pain  
discernable in both the audible and mental aspects of its voice. ((And that's  
all.... what Doris wanted to do as well. D!)) it cried out as the pressure  
began to increase again. ((I'll make you a deal! Just listen! D!))  
  
"What?" he whispered in an utterly flat tone, his lips curling back of  
their own accord to bare his fangs. The blue glow in his eyes was pulsating  
now, dimming and strengthening in time with the rapid beating of his heart.  
  
((If you let her help you and it doesn't ease the pain of Doris' memory,  
I'll tell you how you can be rid of me without killing yourself,)) it said in a  
subdued tone. ((Yes, I know it'll kill me, but your pain will end up killing  
you first from the inside if you don't do something about it. D....))  
  
The offer focused his attention in ways few things had in life, seeming to  
grab him by the very core of his soul and slam him into a very solid object so  
that he had no choice but to focus on it. "What?" he said, clearly taken by  
surprise at its words.  
  
((I know you're kind enough not to think of me as a parasite too often, but  
we both know that's what I really am,)) it explained quietly. ((I attached to  
you out of a need for survival, D, and I've been with you ever since. I know  
you better than any sentient entity who ever existed, past or present, and I  
know your guilt over your encounter with Doris has eaten away at your soul. If  
nothing is done, it will consume you entirely and that will be it for the  
both of us. I have no wish to die, but when given a choice between a quick  
death and one that's drawn out over centuries, I know which one I'm going to  
choose without hesitation.  
  
((And now you have a choice, D. You can either let your memory of Doris  
destroy you, or you can try to do something about it. Yes, I realize that it's  
a gamble to let Leila try to help you, but that's a damn sight better than not  
having any chance at all. Open yourself to her again, just like you did when  
you told her about Doris. Trust her, D, trust in her humanity to be able to  
help you, to ease your pain at the memories. Like I said, if it doesn't work  
out, I'll tell you how to remove me. Either way, I'm just as good as dead as  
you will be if this doesn't work, so tell me why I shouldn't give this one a  
fighting chance?))  
  
He knew that if he thought long enough about it, he would never truly wish  
to be free of it. It was simply too useful an ally to discard, despite all the  
less-than-pleasant moments it brought him. Still, to even have the knowledge  
of how to get rid of it if he ever truly had to, one that didn't involve his  
own death or permanent mutilation of his arm, was simply too tempting of an  
offer to simply dismiss out of hand. Such as it were....  
  
"I'm listening," he said calmly as he relaxed his hand, opening it up just  
to look at. The glow in his eyes had started to fade away, but there was still  
enough of it left to remind him that he was still on the brink of losing both  
his temper and his control.  
  
((Just go back outside, D,)) it replied in a weary voice. ((You don't have  
to say anything to her. If she is truly intent on trying to help you, she will  
approach you again. And when that happens, all you have to do is let her do  
what she wants. You know her, D, you know she won't hurt you.))  
  
"Intentionally," D reminded it in a very soft tone.  
  
((That's the risk I'm asking you to take, my friend,)) it replied as the  
wrinkles in his hand opened up, fully revealing its face. ((Open up to her and  
give her the opportunity to touch your heart with the warmth of her human soul.  
Do what she asks of you, even if you don't understand why, but most importantly  
D.... don't be afraid to be yourself, the true you instead of the dark hunter  
you've used as the armor for your soul for so long.))  
  
He looked down at it in silence for a long time, part of him able to see  
the wisdom in its words but at the same time doubting it would be of any real  
value. He knew what he was deep inside.... or did he really?  
  
((D?)) it asked gently.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
((Word of advice, assuming you haven't run out of tolerance for me?)) It  
waited in uncharacteristic silence to see if he would respond before adding,  
((You're thinking too much. Humans think with their minds, but they just as  
often feel with their hearts instead. It causes trouble, yes, but that's just  
what makes them human. Now either get on the toilet and do something or get  
out of the bathroom so she doesn't start to think you're hiding in here.))  
  
The softest of grunts of amusement rose up from D's chest as he nodded and  
started to reach for the door handle. He knew it was right, that the time for  
thinking was finally past and that it was time to do something.  
  
((Uh, D?)) it added quickly. ((Don't forget to flush. Manners, you know.))  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Leila had apparently been waiting for him when he emerged from the cramped  
bathroom, rising to her feet a moment after the door closed behind him. She  
gave him a quick glance that he couldn't read before she moved past him, one  
hand casually brushing against his arm as she went inside and closed the door.  
  
Dismissing it, he returned to the window and looked back outside, able to  
see just the faintest traces of illumination tinting the landscape as the sun  
began to rise. The terrain would remain quite dim for awhile, as the heavy  
clouds of the storm would filter out most of the light. The hauntingly low  
howl of the wind was still audible to him, brushing at the edges of his hearing  
like the caress of an insubstantial ghost.  
  
He frowned as the back of his mind started to nag him again, trying to let  
him remember something. He closed his eyes as he concentrated, letting the  
spectral sound flow through him as he started to sort his memories. It came to  
him a moment later, that he had heard that exact same sound a very long time  
ago, caused not by a storm but by the tidal influences made when the two moons  
passed so close to one another at a specific point in time....  
  
The curtains had been easily brushed aside, giving him an unusually clear  
view of both celestial objects. They had been low on the horizon, the optical  
illusionary effects of the atmosphere causing them to both seem larger in the  
sky than they normally were. They were both nearly full at the same time, an  
event that didn't occur with great frequency. Situated between them had been  
the dark shadow of Count Lee's castle, and even as Doris told him what she knew  
of the vampire noble, he had been focused on the panoramic view, enthralled not  
just by the spectacular vista but also by the softest of whispering hums in the  
air, almost mistaken as the sound of the shield generator but far softer and  
deeper than any mechanical or electrical resonance....  
  
D opened his eyes as he felt more than heard a presence behind him, a  
simple glance in the window revealing Leila's reflection. He almost nodded to  
her, indicating his satisfaction that she could move as quietly a true vampire  
hunter could when stalking her prey....  
  
He felt the lightest of touches on his bare back, almost as if a butterfly  
was landing on him instead of the caress of her fingertips. He almost turned  
to look at her, knowing that she was going to try to reach out to him again but  
still too hesitant, too unsure of himself to try to take the initiative.  
  
"What do you see out there?" she asked quietly. "I can't see a damned  
thing myself, but seeing how you keep looking out there I figured there had to  
be something that keeps getting your attention."  
  
"The wind," he replied quietly. He glanced over at her reflection, able  
to see the brief veiling of her blue eyes as she blinked hard.  
  
"You can see the wind?" she asked incredulously.  
  
"No," he replied with just the faintest hint of reproachment in his voice.  
"I'm not looking at it, but listening instead to the way it resonates in the  
storm. You won't be able to hear as I can. Humans can't hear that low of a  
frequency."  
  
She made a soft noise to herself as she drew close, almost enough to press  
her body against his. "So what does it sound like?"  
  
What indeed, he mused as he listened for a second. "It is.... almost like  
a call," he found himself saying, surprising himself with the realization that  
it truly did sound like a call, a siren's song that lured him to do little else  
but listen to its haunting melody. "It's not music, but it is.... pleasing in  
a way I can't describe."  
  
"Sounds like you know how to find beauty after all," she said softly, a  
faint smile crossing her face.  
  
"Was that ever in question?" he asked, more out of a compulsion to have  
her continue to speak rather than honest curiosity at how she thought of him.  
  
"That depends on how you look at it," she said, a hint of playful coyness  
creeping into her tone. "I know vampires are attracted to beautiful people,  
since they tend to be carted off more than someone more plain-looking. Meier  
Link obviously found Charlotte to be beautiful, right?"  
  
He said nothing, knowing that there was both a solid ring of truth to her  
words as well as something designed to entrap him somehow. At least, that's  
what he figured she was trying to do....  
  
"Tell me something, dunpeal," she said in an openly curious tone, very  
softly tracing the muscular curve of his shoulderblade with a fingernail. "Do  
you find women to be beautiful?"  
  
"I do," he replied calmly, suddenly wishing that the proverbial lights he  
was seeing up ahead didn't mean he was about to encounter a truck.  
  
"That's good," she whispered. "For awhile there I was starting to think  
that you were the kind to like guys and that you wouldn't.... well, no matter.  
You told me about your past already, so I guess you put that one to rest."  
  
He remained silent as she continued to idly trace various muscle curves on  
his back with her fingernails, pressing just lightly enough to be felt without  
really scratching the skin. He figured he knew what angle she was trying to  
take with this, idly wondering if it would be worthwhile to accept.  
  
"Not to belittle your past, D, but honestly.... was she the only one you  
allowed yourself to end up in bed with?" she mused. She had been prepared for  
some sort of reaction from him at the jab, but even so she wasn't able to fully  
follow along as he turned around to face her, seeming to be only a blur for a  
split-second before he was staring into her eyes.  
  
She did her best not to let her surprise show or allow her courage to  
falter. "Tell me there haven't been others," she said in a soft, almost husky  
tone as she reached up to brush a single fingertip against his cheek. "Other  
women who looked at you and liked what they saw. Strength, power, grace. Tell  
me none of them who looked at you like that didn't try to reach out to you, to  
share a few special moments with you...."  
  
"There have," he finally said, unable to lie to her or remain silent.  
  
"Why, D?" she asked in a mere whisper, her finger coming down to lazily  
trace the curve of his jaw. "Why have you never taken them up on their offer?  
Did you not find them pretty enough, or womanly enough for you? What stayed  
your hand from their willing bodies?"  
  
A decidedly icy shiver ran down his spine as her other hand came up to  
lightly caress his chest, her fingertips brushing across his collarbone before  
very slowly sliding down the length of his abdomen to his waist. Her eyes  
never left his, seeming to twinkle with playful coyness as she continued to  
whisper softly to him.  
  
"You know what I think?" she breathed quietly, her fingertips still idly  
brushing along his jaw and abdomen. "I think you're afraid. You fear them,  
don't you? You're afraid that you might.... hurt them, hurt them as you come  
to them in the heat of the night to lie with them, to fill them with pleasure  
and take some in return. You're afraid of a woman's power, aren't you, D?"  
  
A dark tingle shot through his body as her fingertip brushed across his  
lips, pressing lightly against them. Even as removed from her heart as her  
finger was, he could still keenly feel the pulse that gently throbbed beneath  
the delicate pad of flesh in her fingertip.  
  
"Tell me you don't desire women, D," she said quietly, edging her body  
closer to his. "Tell me you don't look at them sometimes and feel it in your  
blood.... a desire, a want, a need to be with them, to hold them, touch them,  
take them. Tell me you don't ever feel these things, that you don't ever have  
a yearning inside, a yearning to be inside...."  
  
He came dangerously close to biting her fingertip as her hand slid down  
further to caress him through the boxers. To deny that her words were having  
an effect on him would be laughably futile, as the proof was plainly evident to  
them both. No, he would not deny that there had been moments when he had cast  
what might have been a lustful glance at a beautiful woman, his conscious mind  
squashing the thought out of existence the moment he became aware of it. He  
was a hunter and a dunpeal, and he didn't have time for....  
  
His train of thought became briefly derailed as he felt her hand move. A  
single fingertip gently slid past the loose folds of the boxers to touch him  
directly, provoking a far more definitive reaction that he could have hoped to  
contain. He soon realized what she was doing, trying to reach out to him not  
as a human to a dunpeal, but as a woman to a man.  
  
"Well, well, what have we here," she breathed huskily as she very gently  
stroked him through the boxers. "If I didn't know better, D, I'd say that you  
like this. Care to try to prove me wrong?"  
  
"Leila...." he said, his voice rasping so hard as to almost be inaudible.  
There simply wasn't anything else to say at that point, other than to indicate  
that he wasn't going to do much of anything at that point.  
  
"I want you to do something for me," she said softly, tilting her head  
back at a slight angle to look at him through partially-closed eyes. "Just a  
small thing, that's all. I want you to remove my knife holster for me. It's  
starting to chafe all of a sudden."  
  
It was hardly a subtle suggestion, or at least it wasn't from where he was  
standing. However, he knew it didn't matter right then who he was or where he  
was from.... when someone had you by the genitals, even if it's with a light or  
welcome touch, you simply don't argue. At least, not right at that particular  
moment in time.  
  
He started to lean forward to reach for the webbing, barely moving a full  
inch before the pressure of the fingertip on his lips drastically increased.  
"Not so fast, tiger," she purred gently. "Two things. First, I want you to  
take your time. You know, to make sure you do it the right way."  
  
He cast a reflexive glance down as she brought her leg up, very lightly  
resting her knee against the hard lump that was starting to stress the fabric  
of his boxers. The edge of her nightgown had been pulled up slightly, exposing  
both the webbing and the edges of her panties. The webbing was secured to her  
upper thigh by two simple velcro straps, which meant that a pair of gentle tugs  
would be sufficient to remove it.  
  
He looked back up at her as she brought the rest of her fingers up to his  
face, gently brushing across his lips to join the first fingertip. "And the  
second?" he asked, making sure to speak carefully so he didn't accidentally  
eat any of her fingers as he talked. He tried to keep his tone neutral, but he  
couldn't completely mask the undercurrent of suspicion at what she was asking.  
  
A distinctly playful smile brushed her lips as she stared at him, staying  
silent for a number of moments before finally speaking up. "Second.... I want  
you to remove it for what you feel are the right reasons."  
  
That caused him to hesitate for a moment, not sure of what she meant. He  
realized a moment later that he must have failed to mask his confusion as her  
expression changed slightly, seeming to lose most of her casual playfulness.  
  
"I know what hurts you the most, D," she said in a soft, somber tone as  
she moved her hand to caress his cheek. Her other hand remained where it was,  
continuing to touch him intimately but otherwise remaining still. "You said it  
yourself, you didn't want things to happen the way they did. I can't change  
the past for you, but I can give you a second chance."  
  
"I don't understand," he finally said, suddenly aware of the warmth of her  
body only a few inches away from his own. Her hands almost burned him where  
they pressed against his skin, luring him, tempting him to bring them even  
closer to him. Her knee suddenly moved, a very subtle movement of increased  
pressure that made his pupils widen just slightly.  
  
"You have a choice, D," she explained, continuing to rub her knee against  
the swelling in his shorts. "You can remove it because I asked you to.... or  
you can remove it because you want to take it off. The result will be the same  
either way and I won't mind why.... but you're the one who will have to live  
with it. Wasn't that the problem last time, D? You did what was right, did  
what she truly wanted, but for what you felt were the wrong reasons?"  
  
The realization didn't so much sink in as slammed into his mind with all  
the grace and brutal force of a moving truck hitting a mosquito. It was an  
undeniable fact that Doris had wanted him, had well and truly wanted him to be  
her first lover, but that he had yielded for the wrong reasons. Yes, that had  
mattered to him.... but did it matter as much to her? Of all the things he had  
done to her, the taking of both her blood and her virginity, leaving her with  
the doubt as to why had hurt her the most. It had hurt her....  
  
....but did it as badly as he thought? Or as much it had hurt him? He  
would of course never know, as she was gone now. Had he not felt so much of a  
repulsion at the thought of an eternal afterlife he might have dared to hope of  
seeing her once again, once his business in the mortal world was finished in  
one fashion or another....  
  
The soft feel of her lips brushing against his jolted him back into full  
consciousness, almost literally. The sensation was decidedly electric, seeming  
to send his entire nervous system into a frenzy of tingles that he had rarely  
experienced before.  
  
It also jolted awake the absolutely last thing he needed right now.  
  
Her startled gasp echoed sharply in his ears as he brought his hands up,  
grasping her shoulders to push her away from him before his instincts could  
wake up enough to react. His world was suddenly veiled in dark blue, able to  
see the faint glow of his own eyes reflected in hers as they became dangerously  
wide. He did his best to remain perfectly still, closing his eyes as he tried  
to get his suddenly labored breathing back under control. The impulse had come  
quickly, almost too quickly, and even though he had fought it off as quickly as  
it had come it had been a battle that was entirely too close for comfort.  
  
"So that's it," she said softly, the tone of her voice causing him to open  
his eyes to look up at her. He was startled to find a soft smile on her lips,  
an odd look of understanding clearly discernable in her eyes. "I take it that  
fighting both Meier Link and Carmilla took a lot out of your other half, hmm?"  
  
"Leila," he said very softly, his tone laced with warning.  
  
"Let's be honest, D," she said, some of the coyness returning to her voice  
as she leaned a little closer to him. "We're both adults here, after all. You  
apparently need blood, right? I think I can spare some for you. Depending on  
how it's done, I might even like it. I doubt it, though. Having a hole poked  
in your body probably won't be the best feeling in the world, but again, let's  
be honest about it. With as much blood as we've both shed during this little  
adventure, what's a little more pain and blood between friends?"  
  
He couldn't have talked if he wanted to, remaining silent as her hand went  
down to her thigh to retrieve her knife. "I'll even give you a choice," she  
offered, bringing the blade up to rest lightly on her arm. "I can make a small  
cut for you, or you can do it yourself if you think I'll make too much of a  
mess or ruin the taste for you. But first thing's first, dunpeal," she cooed  
as she gently rubbed her knee against his groin again. "We can discuss this  
one after you remove the holster for me. Remember.... slowly to do it right,  
and doing it for the right reasons," she said with a soft purr.  
  
It took him what seemed to be entirely too long to get his mind back under  
control, letting him think properly. She was openly offering herself to him,  
in more ways than one, and he had every reason to believe she knew what she was  
doing. Taking her blood would hurt her, but if she was willing to hurt herself  
to help him.... would it be wrong to accept her offer? Would giving her what  
she apparently wanted, even at a cost.... would that be wrong?  
  
He looked into her eyes, trying to understand the emotions staring back at  
him. A cold chill gripped him as he suddenly remembered seeing the exact same  
look in Doris' eyes, back when she had suggested that he didn't need to wear  
his boots in bed. Or anything else....  
  
It's happening again, he thought before his conscious mind suddenly froze  
in place. Or was it? Leila's words started to gently echo in his mind's ear  
once again, trying to reassure him. I can't change the past for you, but I can  
give you a second chance.... I want you to remove it for what you feel are the  
right reasons....  
  
His hands seemed to move of their own accord, very slowly moving down to  
caress the smoothness of her thigh. Her skin was warm to the touch, the solid  
muscles seemed to quiver beneath his fingertips. He allowed himself to linger  
for a moment before moving down further, grasping the velcro strap and gently  
pulling it apart. The material made a steady ripping noise as it was undone,  
eventually falling silent as the two halves were separated.  
  
A sudden frown crossed his face as he realized that she had secured the  
holster just a little too tightly, as there was a red mark of abused skin where  
the strap had once covered it. Realizing that she had been serious about being  
chafed by the webbing, he wasted little time in unbinding the second strap with  
a simple yet gentle tug of his wrist. A second red line was revealed as the  
holster fell away from her leg, twisting slightly as he held onto the strap.  
  
"D?" Leila asked very softly as she noticed the change in his expression.  
"What's the matter?"  
  
He said nothing as he tossed the holster behind him, reaching up with both  
hands to very lightly massage her thigh where the marks were. The marks were  
shallow indentations that would likely disappear on their own within a few  
minutes, but he continued to gently minister to them anyway. He kept his touch  
as light as possible, acutely aware of the fact that every subtle motion of his  
hands on her legs sent a slight vibration to the kneecap still pressed against  
his crotch.  
  
The motion of his hands slowed, then stopped entirely as he became aware  
of her pulse beneath his fingertips. A strong, steady, vibrant drumbeat that  
called to him, beckoned to his dark nature. He realized that he would have to  
feed soon, either from her or something else. He needed to, as much as it made  
his human side sick to think about. Perhaps he should let her use her knife to  
open up a small vein, so as not to leave a bite mark that could be....  
  
But what if it couldn't? Could he? Should he?  
  
Her eyebrows arched up slightly as she saw his expression change again,  
wondering what he was thinking. It had to be something of importance, as his  
gaze had suddenly unfocused for a number of seconds before he blinked, looking  
back up at her with a studious expression. She would have asked him what was  
on his mind if she thought she could have gotten an answer. That, and the feel  
of his hands on her upper thigh was starting to make it really difficult to  
think straight all of a sudden....  
  
"D?" she half-whispered, half-moaned as his fingertips started to roam  
across her entire leg. She forgot what she was trying to ask him when his head  
came up, his lips suddenly melding to hers in a kiss that literally raised the  
hair on the back of her neck. The intensity was electrifying, but the sudden  
hardening of his kiss sent an icy chill creeping into her blood. Not that the  
pressure on her lips had increased, but that she could feel the indentations in  
his lips caused by his vampiric fangs.  
  
She closed her eyes as his fingertips suddenly glided upward at a steady  
pace, pushing the edges of her nightgown up along with them. A soft moan rose  
up from her throat as his hands paused and reversed their motion, very lightly  
snagging the waistband of her panties to take along with them. It seemed to  
take both forever and only a short instant for the resistance to be overcome,  
the cotton-like fabric sliding across her skin. The soft sound of them hitting  
the floor seemed to echo in her ears, eliciting another quiet moan that she was  
unable to completely suppress.  
  
His fingers briefly explored the newly-bared curves of her lower body,  
running along her hips to knead her backside before sliding back around to her  
lower abdomen. His thumbs brushed along her nether lips with a feather-light  
touch, tickling the soft downy mass of pubic hair before beginning a very slow  
migration upwards again.  
  
Their lips continued to remain in light contact as the nightgown was very  
slowly removed, pushed up higher and higher until his hands were sliding over  
her breasts. She sighed and leaned back slightly, breaking the kiss to give  
him the space he needed to finish the task. He seemed to move with deliberate  
gentleness as he raised her arms, allowing him to take the knife from her hand  
even as the nightgown was pulled over her head.  
  
She opened her eyes once the gown was completely off, looking at him with  
what could only be described as breathless anticipation. She blinked as he  
seemed to frown, glancing down at the blade in his hand with what might have  
been a look of disgust. "D, what is it?" she whispered cautiously.  
  
"I was wrong," he said quietly, his impassionate words flooding her veins  
with a deep chill. "It's only double-folded carbon-edged titanium."  
  
She blinked for a moment before laughing softly, not sure what else to do  
at the situation. She had just let him undress her completely, and even as she  
stood before him wearing nothing but a soft smile and a blush he was focused on  
a mistake in identification made during the middle of the night. "Like I said,  
it's served me well," she murmured. She hesitated before asking, "Do you want  
me to...?"  
  
His hand moved faster than she had thought possible, suddenly reaching up  
to grasp her wrist. His eyes widened slightly as a look of revulsion crossed  
his face, his other hand sending the blade spinning through the air to bury  
itself in the wall behind him. "NO" he said in a whisper, his voice rasping  
from the sheer force of emotion. "No, that...." he said in a far more gentler  
tone, "Not.... like that."  
  
His outburst of emotion surprised the hell out of her, but at this point  
she was starting to get used to controlling her combative reflexes. "Alright  
then," she said, trying to keep her voice soft and steady. She brought herself  
close to him, gently pulling her wrist free from his grasp. She then ran her  
fingertips across the expanse of his chest, studying his skin carefully. It  
was as pale as the rest of him but was silky smooth to her touch, appearing to  
be without scar or flaw. "So how are we going to do this?" she whispered.  
  
Her eyes closed of their own accord as his hand came up, gently tipping  
her head back. His lips brushed against hers a moment later, again in a soft,  
almost ethereal kiss that made her tingle from head to toe. Her hands seemed  
to respond of their own accord, sliding down to his waist to slip inside the  
tight elastic band of his boxers.  
  
All it took was a simple tug before his underwear joined hers in a puddle  
on the floor, exposing him to both sight and touch. She started to explore him  
as he had her, marveling at the softness of his skin before carefully toying  
with a distinctly harder part of his anatomy.  
  
She couldn't help the soft whimper that rose up from her throat as his  
lips started to slide across her cheek, very slowly migrating down to her neck.  
She knew he would take her there, as it was both an easy target and a strong  
source of blood. She could feel his fangs pressing against his lips as he took  
his time kissing her throat, waiting for them to part so she could feel the  
sharpened points directly....  
  
....but instead, felt only his lips sliding down to her collarbone with  
all the tenderness of an experienced lover. It took her a moment to realize  
that he hadn't bitten her yet, wondering if she had missed something. Those  
soft lips continued a very slow descent, working their way over the top of her  
chest to caress the swells of her breast.  
  
"D?" she whispered, whether in confusion or anticipation or simple delight  
she couldn't say. She reached up to caress his neck, running her fingertips  
through his shoulder-length mane of hair. Her breath left her lungs in a soft  
exodus a moment later as he began a very gentle assault on the underside of her  
breast, his lips roaming across the supersoft flesh with an intensity that left  
her breathless with desire.  
  
The sense of anticipation only grew stronger as his lips started to move  
in a circle, brushing the outermost edges of her areolae. She had to bite the  
edge of her lip a moment later as his head suddenly dipped lower, leaving her  
throbbing nipple untouched. What the hell was he doing? He was right there,  
and even a blind man could see that she really wanted his lips to....  
  
"Hey!" she protested gently as he suddenly stood up, sweeping her off of  
her feet in a single fluid movement. The world around her suddenly became a  
blur as he moved forward, and before she could even blink she found herself  
being gently laid down on the bed. "Wow...." she breathed in awe as her senses  
started to catch up to her. How fast had he moved, and with her in his arms?  
She knew she wasn't exactly a lightweight, but he had seemed to have carried  
her as if she were little more than a very bulky feather....  
  
His lips return to her abdomen, disrupting her thoughts. They seemed to  
be moving with a purpose now, pressing slightly harder as they roamed around.  
She could still feel the presence of his fangs as he kissed his way across her  
body, still kept concealed behind his lips for the moment. They would come out  
to play soon enough, but if not up at her throat, where?  
  
D heard her soft intake of breath as he dipped his head even lower, very  
gently nudging her leg aside to kiss her honeyed sheath. The scent of her musk  
was almost overpowering, calling him, whispering that she was more than ready  
for him. The dark hunger in him was also fully awake now, restless with its  
own needs and yearning for that sweetest of tastes.  
  
The glow was back in his eyes, veiling everything with a blue tint. He  
moved closer to her, letting his lips part to bring his tongue into play. A  
very gentle pressure was all it took to glide the tip past the velvety folds of  
her sheath, lightly flicking against the pearl of her womanhood. The call, the  
lust of her blood sang out to him, begging him to slake his thirst, but there  
would be no drinking here. No, he was on the holiest of grounds, and not even  
the darkest part of him dared to try to take her in that most sacred of spots.  
He lingered there for as long as he could, very gently lapping up another kind  
of life-giving essence, one that neither force nor fang could ever acquire.  
  
It was time now, as he barely could keep himself under control and simply  
could not wait any longer. He lifted his head from the soft tangle of hair,  
giving those supersoft lips a final kiss before twisting to one side to brush  
his lips against her thigh. He found what he was looking for, coincidentally  
nestled between the two marks where her knife holster had been. He tried to  
resist for one final moment before giving in, mentally whispering a prayer of  
forgiveness as he parted his lips.  
  
She couldn't see straight anymore, the onslaught of raw pleasure making it  
all but impossible to focus on the ceiling. A bolt of horror had shot through  
her when he began to use his mouth, fearing that his bite would follow next.  
A sense of relief strong enough to rival the tidal waves of intense pleasure  
washed over her as he finally turned his head away. He wasn't going to bite  
her there, thank God, but where would he.... on her thigh? Of all the....!!!  
  
Her left hand was still on his head, gripping him tightly as she held him  
in place. That only left her right hand free to move, crossing the gap to her  
mouth in the blink of an eye to jam between her teeth. The pain was intense,  
oh dear Christ, it was like being shot in the leg, bad enough her shoulder had  
hurt like a royal bitch, but.... ow.... well.... okay, it was starting to fade  
just a little bit, maybe it wasn't that bad after all, but still what the  
hell was she thinking when.... oooooh.... what the hell? What was he doing?  
  
Licking? Yes, that was his tongue she felt, very slowly brushing across  
the twin punctures in her thigh. What the hell? Vampires suck the blood out,  
they don't lick it. She know, she had seen it happen in front of her, when  
that one had taken that poor young girl.... oooooh, that felt weird....  
  
She allowed her thoughts to fade out as his right hand came up, sliding  
across her stomach up to her chest. She pulled her hand out of her mouth and  
grabbed him without thinking, clutching his hand tightly. Their fingers wound  
up intertwined a moment later, pressing their palms together as they held on to  
one another. The pain her leg was rather tolerable now, seeming to fade ever  
so slightly with each brush of his tongue. You know, he seemed to know what he  
was doing earlier, and if he doesn't wear out his tongue just yet....  
  
She released her left hand from the back of his head, bringing it up to  
join her right in holding his hand. She gently guided his fingers over to the  
swell of her breast, letting go of him just long enough to press his palm flat  
against the supertight point of her nipple. He very slowly began to respond,  
working his palm in a slow circle that send electrical tingles screaming along  
the nerves in the upper half of her body.  
  
She had no idea how long he remained at her thigh, lapping up the blood as  
it flowed freely. She didn't know when it stopped flowing, the river becoming  
a stream before abating to a trickle, then finally drying up to little more  
than a pair of faintly-oozing marks. What she did know, however, was the exact  
moment his lips and tongue were finished with her leg and started to play with  
her once again.  
  
Her back reflexively arched as his tongue dove into her, not the gentle  
explorations from earlier but a serious intrusion into her innermost garden.  
Tiny sparks began to form in her vision as she was stimulated in a way she had  
rarely been in the past, the onslaught of pleasure threatening to cut off the  
breath in her lungs.  
  
"D...." she whispered softly, knowing that she was as ready as she would  
ever be, that if he didn't take her now she'd have to make him take her. A  
sudden thought came to her then, wondering out of the blue if raping him would  
really be all that of a bad idea. It'd give him something to think about for  
a very long time, that was for certain....  
  
One thing was for certain, the back of her mind thought. He needed to  
quit doing that. Not what his lips were doing to her nipple right now, the  
sudden contact really making her see and feel sparks, but the whole part about  
moving so fast that she couldn't follow. One instant his tongue had been down  
there, probing her depths with passion, and the next her breast was under a  
most delightful siege from his lips. His weight settled against her a moment  
later, the hardness of his manhood pressing against her just inches away from  
where she wanted him, where she needed him to be....  
  
....And with a simple movement of his hips, her wish was fulfilled. She  
was fulfilled, feeling him inside her in a slow, gentle thrust. The slow and  
gentle part lasted for a few moments before the pace picked up, leaving her  
feeling utterly breathless at the feeling. It became even harder to breathe  
properly as their lips met, pressing against one another in a primal urge of  
lust and passion and need.  
  
Time once again seemed to bend in on itself, seeming to take forever to  
pass even as it passed all too quickly. She felt him tense, his head moving  
down to press his face against her throat, struggling to keep himself in check,  
to avoid from losing control. It was too soon for her, even with all of the  
pleasure he had given her so far she knew she wouldn't, she couldn't reach that  
peak of almost divine power before he did. But that only made her decision all  
the easier to make.  
  
She took as deep a breath as she could manage and forced her eyes open,  
looking at him as she clenched her internal muscles. It was something she had  
rarely practiced doing, but like riding a bike one didn't forget certain skills  
once acquired. Time to meet the true power of a woman, she thought.  
  
His reaction was almost comical in the way it played out. He was on the  
downstroke when her muscles grabbed his manhood in a vice-like grip, causing  
his body to lurch forward in a sort of stumble. His head was a blur as it came  
up, his pupils widening rapidly as he stared into her eyes. His irises seemed  
to suddenly explode outward a moment later as he orgasmed. The effect was so  
powerful that she could actually see it crossing his optic nerves even as she  
felt him pulse hard inside her, filling her abdomen with a curious warmth. His  
breath left his lungs a moment later, seeming to roar past her with the force  
of a concussive blast before he slumped against her chest.  
  
Damn, she thought to herself, clearly impressed from her point of view.  
She couldn't stop herself from giggling quietly as she reached up, running her  
fingertips through his hair and along the broad expanse of his back. She began  
to squeeze him gently on the inside, a series of gentle tugging and grabbing  
motions that produced a very soft grunt from the dunpeal.  
  
"D?" she whispered softly when she was sure his breathing had calmed down  
to a more biologically-feasible level. "You okay?"  
  
He slowly lifted his head up to look at her, his expression seeming to ask  
'are you kidding?' while seeming to wonder what exactly had hit him. "Leila,"  
he whispered, his voice rasping loudly. "What.... what did you do?"  
  
She giggled again and squeezed his shoulders. "Nothing, really," she said  
softly. A wicked look entered her eyes as she added, "Just thought I'd try to  
put a smile on your face, that's all."  
  
His eyes closed briefly, and she honestly couldn't tell if he had smiled  
at her words or not. "Leila?" he whispered, and it became clear from his tone  
that he was far from smiling. "I'm sorry.... I.... couldn't...."  
  
"D," she said gently, a genuine smile of understanding on her face. She  
couldn't have set this one up any better if she had tried. "Do me a favor."  
She waited until he looked up at her with a faintly guarded look before she  
explained what she wanted. "Just hold onto me as tightly as you can, okay?  
Hey, don't go anywhere!" she added quickly as he started to withdraw from her  
depths. That was the last thing she wanted right now, as she was far from  
ready to call it a night.  
  
He gave her a curious look before nodding, sliding back deeper inside her  
as he slid his arms around her waist in a tight hug. She leaned forward to  
kiss him deeply, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as tightly as she could  
manage. She held still for a moment, basking in the warmth of his body before  
she took a deep breath and flexed as hard as she could.  
  
D blinked in surprise as they both twisted to the side, eventually ending  
up wedged in the corner between the wall and the bed. He figured out after a  
moment what she had really intended to do, but apparently had misjudged just  
how much free space she had to play with.  
  
"Sorry," she muttered, casting a disappointed look at the wall. Her eyes  
went wide as he adjusted his position, thrusting his hips up to scoot his butt  
over a few inches before likewise letting his back move. It was a very odd,  
almost caterpillar-like evolution, but it was only a matter of seconds before  
D was lying in the center of the bed with Leila still impaled on top of him.  
  
"Yeah, that'll work," she said quietly, suddenly breathless from the way  
his manhood had pressed against her when he had flexed. She made sure her legs  
were in a comfortable position before she shifted her weight, edging forward a  
bit before rocking back. Her eyes almost popped out of her head as she felt  
him press right there, right at where she was the most sensitive.  
  
Are you kidding me? she thought in awe as she adjusted her weight again  
and repeated the motion. Oh, my god, he was right there, apparently he was  
just the right size, the perfect size for her when she was on top like this.  
If she had doubts earlier about this, they were bat-out-of-hell gone now.  
  
"Well, D," she purred at him as she reached down, taking his hands in hers  
and pressing them against her breasts. "I think it's safe to say that you had  
your fun with me, right? I'm sure you enjoyed it. But guess what, hunter?"  
  
He frowned at the sudden shift in her demeanor, suddenly wary about what  
she was trying to tell him. He blinked as she leaned forward, resting the  
weight of her chest against his palms and squeezing him tightly with those oh-  
so-wonderful muscles on the inside, muscles he never even knew women had.  
  
"It's my turn now, D," she whispered, her voice turning predatory. "And  
I suggest you hold on, because I am going to ride you until I get tired. I  
won't hurt you, of course, but I when I am through with you, you will never be  
afraid of being a man ever again. Prepare to be owned, vampire hunter D," she  
she breathed huskily as she started to move at a steady pace.  
  
Oh, shit, was the only thing he could think of before things suddenly got  
interesting. She was using her internal muscles to squeeze him as she moved,  
her hips rocking back and forth in gentle motion. The feeling was well beyond  
any descriptive words, making rational thought all but impossible.  
  
Part of him could still think, however. That distant part of him, always  
seeming to be disconnected from the strain of reality, told him that he was now  
in the best of all possible trouble. The tables were very much turned, as he  
was now the one being used, the one having to lay still while he was dominated  
by the rising passions of lust. He understood now what she had gone through,  
what they had gone through, Leila and Doris both, when they drew him down to  
them, when they beckoned him to take them, yielding themselves to him as he now  
yielded to Leila's ministrations.  
  
He cursed himself long and hard for being a fool of a man, even as he was  
gripped in an almost painful embrace by Leila's orgasm. How could he have not  
understood this earlier? He had hurt her with his dark kiss, hurt them when he  
had taken their blood, and that simple physical pain could never be denied,  
would never be forgotten. But yielding to their desires, coming to them in the  
heat of passion and even lust, hadn't hurt them. No, far from it.... if he was  
feeling what they had felt, the pleasure, the joy, the simple exhilaration of  
giving, then perhaps he indeed had been too hard on himself, that perhaps he  
could be forgiven for taking their offered blood to sustain himself, to make  
him strong enough to please them as they had wanted him to....  
  
She continued to ride him at a steady pace, her movements quicker now than  
they had been a short time before. Her sweat was raining down on his chest,  
his stomach, his legs, dripping from her face and hair. Her skin was flushed  
with pleasure and her breath labored in her lungs, her hands braced against his  
chest. His hands were still on her breasts, kneading them strongly, almost  
painfully as she rested her weight against him. A second orgasm rocked her,  
the waves of pure, indescribable pleasure making every single muscle in her  
sweat-soaked body shiver and twitch like a puppet having her strings cut.  
  
And yet she continued to ride him, relentlessly riding the waves of her  
own passion to even higher peaks with each thrust of her hips. He could feel  
his own body reacting now, his own pressures building from being a part of her,  
feeding the white-hot fires of her pleasure. It didn't matter if he was giving  
her what she needed or if she was simply taking it from him, he was with her in  
a way he had never felt before. How much had he missed out over the years,  
the decades, the centuries of denying the urges he didn't know how to handle,  
simply casting them aside with sheer force of will?  
  
He was close now, close to bursting within her once again. Yet he could  
sense that so was she, despite two orgasms only minutes apart and probably one  
step removed from complete and utter exhaustion. He had been ashamed, even  
mortified as how easily he had slipped over the edge earlier. Surely as a man  
he should have seen to her needs, to at least bring her to an orgasm of some  
strength before losing himself. But this time it would be different....  
  
He closed his eyes lest he frighten her, deliberately reaching inward to  
tap the darkest part of his psyche. He could feel the change a moment later,  
his eyes starting to luminesce and his fangs emerging once again. He had no  
intention of biting her again, but what he needed was a strength of will that  
he long ago realized his human side lacked. The human part of him could only  
resist for so long before the vampire part of him stepped in, and now he sought  
to use it in a pre-emptive strike.  
  
"D?" she whispered to him, able to see the change as he breathed hard.  
Words failed her a moment later as she felt him start moving against her, his  
hips rising up to counter her movements and his thumbs gently crushing her  
fiercely-aching nipples against his fingers. The pleasure seemed to triple in  
intensity as he worked with her, the tip of his manhood firmly gliding past  
that magic spot time and time and time again, relentless in a pace that seemed  
to set itself. The vast increase in sensation helped blot out her worry about  
his visage, now openly vampiric and clearly entering a lustful frenzy.  
  
Everything went blue, his breathing seeming to thunder in his ears in a  
mad cacophony. His focus, his entire being, was narrowed down to a single part  
of his body, a single purpose in mind. He had to control himself, he had to  
hold off until her passion broke first, he had to, he HAD to, there was no  
other choice, no other acceptable alternative, had to had to hadtohadto....  
  
What was blue became white, a brilliant, blinding white as she cried out  
in a half-gasp, half-scream. Her muscles tightened up around him, gripping him  
so firmly and so suddenly that he had little doubt he would have gotten a bad  
case of friction burn if she wasn't so deliciously wet. The feeling was beyond  
description, and as before he found himself flooding her with what felt to be  
his entire life-force.  
  
The white glare slowly faded back to blue, then even that faded away as he  
once again became aware of himself and his surroundings. Leila was collapsed  
into a quivering pile on his chest, her breath audibly rasping in her lungs as  
she tried to calm down enough to remember her name. Her whole body shook with  
spasms and tremors of pleasure, her skin searingly hot where it touched his.  
  
Everything became gray after that as he slid into what might have been a  
very shallow sleep. He was dimly aware of his surroundings, the coolness of  
the air on his naked skin, the frantic throbbing of her heart in her chest as  
she lay on top of him, able to keenly feel her pulse around him where he was  
still deeply buried inside her. And above all, the look on her face....  
  
Doris had had the exact same look afterwards, too.  
  
Maybe I didn't hurt her after all, was his last thought before everything  
became a cool, comforting shade of black.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
He returned to full consciousness when she moved off of him, just enough  
to slide him free of her sheath before seeming to carefully edge off to one  
side. His eyes responded a moment later, parting enough to let him see what  
she was doing.  
  
"Sorry," she whispered as she leaned forward. A soft kiss seemed to sear  
his very soul a moment later, bringing with it a kind of warmth that he could  
never truly remember feeling before. "I didn't mean to wake you."  
  
"I'm awake," he replied quietly, almost managing to make it sound like his  
usually reserved demeanor.  
  
He was answered with a quiet giggle and another soft kiss. "Yeah, sure  
you are," she teased him, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement and something  
else. "I'm overheating here, so I hope you don't mind if I hop in the shower  
for really quick rinse. I'll be right back, I promise."  
  
He simply nodded back at her, wondering if she thought it was possible for  
him to refuse her anything at this point. She patted his chest as she got up,  
pausing to lean over for another deep kiss. He wasn't used to kissing, as it  
simply wasn't in a vampire's nature to kiss when you weren't using your fangs,  
but he was starting to feel that it was something he just might be able to get  
used to. Maybe.  
  
Only his eyes moved as he followed her trek across the room, making a stop  
at the cabinet to get a clean towel before slipping inside the shower. That  
she didn't wait for the shower to heat up before going inside told him that she  
hadn't been kidding about needing to cool down. Granted her skin had felt  
warmer than usual as she laid next to him, but he didn't think it had gotten  
that hot. But then again, he had just discovered how wrong he had been about  
so many other things....  
  
((D?)) it spoke up in a very cautious tone.  
  
It took him a moment to decide if he wanted to impale his hand on the  
nearest solid object or not. He finally settled for turning his left hand  
around, gazing impassively at the thing embedded in his palm. "What?" he asked  
in a soft but flat tone, indicating that this was not the time for it to  
start anything.  
  
((I'll ask you about the details later,)) it said with a soft chuckle, the  
wrinkles looking even more wrinkled than usual. ((Just tell me one thing, D.  
Was I right or wrong?))  
  
It galled him to say it, but he had to say it nonetheless. "It seems you  
were right," he said very quietly.  
  
((Heh,)) it laughed softly. ((Amazing what a little trust can accomplish.  
Something tells me you're not done yet, D, but that's between you and her.)) It  
seemed to hesitate for a moment before continuing. ((D, I don't want to rain on  
your parade or ruin what you seem to have going here.... but remember what I  
said about needing to rest?))  
  
"I know," he replied simply.  
  
((Just saying. Oops, that was a quick shower, wasn't it? Like I said, D,  
don't be afraid to open up to her and be your true self,)) it said, the voice  
dropping to a whisper as the shower door opened up. It seemed to melt back  
into his palm in an instant, the face-like features smoothing out until it was  
little more than a collection of deep wrinkles.  
  
He dropped his hand to his side as she approached, toweling her blonde  
hair furiously. She paused to move the towel lower, giving her body only the  
most perfunctory of passes before dropping it on the floor entirely. She sat  
on the edge of the bed, leaning over to kiss him soundly once again before she  
stretched out.  
  
She made a soft noise of protest as he scooted away from her, giving him  
a slightly disturbed look. She paused as she realized that he was only trying  
to make a comfortable space for, letting her stretch the full length of her  
body out against his. She snuggled up to him as she reached down, drawing only  
the bottom sheet up to their waists. Her head rested on his arm as she stared  
into his eyes, the soft smile of satisfaction seeming to be been permanently  
implanted on her face.  
  
"D?" she murmured softly, one hand coming up to caress his face. A soft  
sigh rose up from her chest as he looked up at her, realizing that he wasn't  
going to reply verbally to her just yet. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome," he replied softly, almost instinctively.  
  
She laughed softly to herself as her fingertips meandered across his face,  
stroking his jaw, brushing his lips, caressing his chin. "You don't know what  
exactly I'm thanking you for, do you?" she inquired lightly.  
  
He said nothing as he stared into her eyes, the barriers of isolation no  
longer present but part of his reserved persona still evident. "No," he said  
after a brief silence.  
  
"D.... why did you take off the knife holster?" she asked gently.  
  
"Because it was hurting you," he replied without hesitation, causing her  
to blink in surprise.  
  
"Really," she said slowly. "I know it was chafing me, but you didn't see  
that until you already removed the first strap," she pointed out. "So why did  
you do that much?"  
  
It was a long time before finally answered her. "You asked me to."  
  
She nodded in understanding to him, a faint hint of sadness springing to  
her eyes. She thought she had been prepared to hear him say that, but part of  
her wanted it to be the other way, that he had truly wanted her. "Thanks," she  
whispered to him.  
  
"Leila...." he asked softly, almost hesitantly. He saw the deeply curious  
look in her eyes and pressed on with the question he was almost afraid to ask.  
"Why did you come to me like this?"  
  
She laughed softly at the question and leaned forward, melding her lips to  
his in another deep, soul-binding kiss that he found he was really beginning to  
like. "I guess I just needed a reminder that I was human," she replied. She  
paused and tilted her head at a slight angle when he saw the confusion in his  
eyes, studying him like a bird might examine something of avian interest.  
  
"I don't understand," he said after trying to think about it.  
  
She sighed quietly and leaned against his arm, closing her eyes for the  
moment. "It's part of being human, D," she explained in a very soft voice.  
"It helps comfort us in a time of need. It reminds us that we're alive, that  
we haven't lost our hold on our humanity like so many of those creatures out  
there. We know we have needs they don't, needs they can never have. The need  
to touch and be touched, to hold and be held, to love and be loved. A need to  
make love, to take and be taken," she added in a soft whisper, reaching up to  
hold his hand gently.  
  
"I think I understand," he replied quietly.  
  
"I hope you do," she murmured, squeezing him gently. "I really do. D....  
I want you to promise me something."  
  
He waited patiently for her to continue, suddenly feeling uneasy at the  
look on her face and her hesitation at speaking further. "I'm listening," he  
finally said quietly.  
  
It seemed to take her a moment to find the courage to speak, her blue eyes  
focused down on the hand she was holding and not him per se. "If in the future  
you happen to escape another nightmarish situation like what you and I did back  
in the castle, and.... you're in the company of a woman you had to rescue or  
had fight by your side for awhile.... if she comes to you once the dust settles  
and seems.... interested in you.... promise me you won't refuse her," she said  
softly, finally looking up at him with a deep sadness in her eyes.  
  
He remained silent for a few moments, trying to figure out what previously  
unidentified part of the human psyche was being tossed in his lap this time.  
"Why do you ask this?" he finally inquired, unable to fathom her motives.  
  
She sighed and curled up tightly against him, suddenly appearing to be on  
the verge of crying. "D.... I know I can't keep you," she whispered, the pain  
clearly evident in her voice. "I know that you will leave here when the storm  
is over, go collect your reward for saving Charlotte's soul, and start hunting  
for the next vampire on your list. I want to go with you, but.... I...."  
  
"Leila," he murmured softly, tilting her chin up. He silenced the pain in  
her voice with a soft kiss, a surprisingly tender gesture that seemed to calm  
her down. "I understand more than you realize. They destroyed your family,  
tainting your soul with the fires of revenge, and for awhile you allowed that  
darkness to burn inside you. But even the strongest fires will run out when  
there is nothing left to burn, and it seems that you have reached your limit.  
  
"I do not know how many vampires you killed, but after how you helped me  
back in the castle, none can say that you have not done your part in ending the  
vampire menace. You have earned your rest now, indeed you must rest, or you  
will only fuel the black fires of vengeance with the only thing you have left  
to offer.... your humanity."  
  
"D, I don't want to lose you," she whispered, the tears starting to fall  
now. "Not after I've lost so much, not after finding you."  
  
He said nothing as he held her tightly, ignoring the acidic stinging of  
her tears as they dripped across his chest and arm. It was no worse than being  
splashed with holy water, which meant it was still tolerable. What bothered  
him beyond words was the fact that her tears were scorching him, making him  
realize that being in the presence of a crying woman was even more dangerous  
than he had thought possible.  
  
"D?" she asked very quietly sometime later, once the tears had finally  
dried up. "How long do you think it will take to finish the job? Of killing  
the rest of the vampires."  
  
How long indeed? he wondered to himself. He had been at this for far too  
long to remember how long ago he had first picked up a sword to kill the first  
one. Hundreds of years, certainly. Thousands? Maybe. Their numbers had been  
vast then, and targets had been plentiful. It was only recently that human  
vampire-hunters had risen to prominence, first one or two, then several, then  
entire groups of them banding together to purge the vampire plague. Perhaps  
they had just needed a little emboldening first, perhaps he had even inspired  
some of them to pick up the sword or gun or whatever they chose to use.  
  
"I don't know," he finally said with genuine honesty. "Their numbers are  
not what they used to be, and those that are left have started to take great  
care to make themselves difficult to find."  
  
"Do you.... do you think you can finish it within my lifetime?" she asked,  
almost too softly for even he to hear. She looked up at him as he glanced down  
at her, their eyes meeting in silence for a minor eternity. "I.... I know this  
is selfish of me to ask, D, but if you do finish them off once and for all....  
would you return to me if I was still alive?"  
  
He stopped to think about how to answer her. If a miracle happened and  
every single vampire suddenly turned to ash tomorrow morning, both on Earth and  
in the City of the Night, it would be a lie to say he wouldn't then sit down  
and think about remaining with her. It was likely, however, that it would take  
at least another two hundred years to purge the planet of them, both vampires  
and dunpeals alike, before he could set out to finish the job in the City of  
the Night. Two hundred years in which he wouldn't appear to age a single day,  
but for a human like Leila....  
  
"I will try," he said quietly, knowing that it would be enough to put her  
at ease, if only a little bit.  
  
"Thank you," she whispered, a soft smile touching her face once again.  
  
"You didn't answer my question," he pointed out a moment later. He saw  
the slight look of confusion in her eyes and added, "About you wanting me to  
promise you that I wouldn't refuse a future companion."  
  
It took a moment for her to remember, a sudden blush spreading across her  
face at it sank in. "Oh, that," she said demurely, glancing away. "I just....  
thought that if I couldn't keep you, I'd at least try to give someone else the  
chance to.... get to know you like I have."  
  
He raised an eyebrow as the crimson blush darkened to an almost painful  
intensity. "What do you mean?" he prodded, thinking he had a decent idea of  
the meaning her words but not wanting to chance a misunderstanding.  
  
She glanced up at him, her cheeks now a solid sheet of red. "D.... you're  
the best lover I've ever had, and I mean that," she admitted. "You're the kind  
of lover women would kill for, and when you add your reputation for being alone  
and mysterious, a sort of noble hunter.... well, what girl wouldn't be tempted  
to have a little fun with you?" she purred coyly. "You know how women are...."  
  
No, I don't, he immediately thought, keeping his expression neutral.  
  
"...When they gather together, talking about this and that, and eventually  
telling one another about their boyfriends," she continued, her tone starting  
to grow husky once again. "I kind of like the idea of being able to listen to  
them for a bit, then saunter up to the bar for a refill and say, 'That sounds  
nice, girls, but let me tell you about the night I had with a legend, the night  
I had with none other than vampire-hunter D himself....'"  
  
He closed his eyes as she pressed herself against him, her leg coming up  
to rub against his in a slow and seductive manner. Her lips brushed against  
his ear, her teeth very lightly nipping at the pointed end before whispering,  
"And it was the best night of my life...."  
  
There was little he could do except turn to face her, his lips seeking out  
hers with a gentle hunger. It wasn't a hunger for blood this time, but a new  
kind of hunger, a desire for her, for her lips, her softness, her taste, her  
warmth. They were all new things to him, not because he had never encountered  
them before.... he would never forget Doris, or now Leila.... but because he  
had never stopped to identify them, to see what they were and to open himself  
up to the experience.  
  
You don't know what it's like, Meier Link had softly told him before their  
final battle, cradling Charlotte's body in his arms, you who have never loved  
a human before. He had brushed aside the vampire's statement, replying that he  
had never killed a human, either. At least, not a genuinely innocent one....  
  
Perhaps Meier had been right after all, that he didn't understand the  
other side of the equation because he hadn't felt it for himself. Would that  
change things? Did that mean that vampires could truly love, could truly be  
sincere in their desire for change? Even if it did, would it be enough to stop  
him from hunting the vampires to extinction? What if they were to leave as  
Meier had, to abandon the planet for the City of the Night, never to return?  
Could he live with that?  
  
"D?" Leila whispered to him, bringing him out of his brooding thoughts.  
"What's on your mind?"  
  
He said nothing as he looked up at her, studying her intently. If a pure-  
blooded vampire could love a human, true and genuine love, didn't that mean a  
dunpeal like himself could love as well? To draw off of not just half of his  
nature, but the whole of it? Even if it was possible, could he do it, after  
spending his entire life steeped in darkness and vengeance? Would he even be  
able to recognize it if he ever encountered it?  
  
"D, please," she implored him gently. "Don't close yourself off from me.  
Tell me what you're thinking about. Please," she whispered, one hand coming up  
to stroke his cheek.  
  
He heard her soft voice as she spoke, but he also heard her voice speaking  
from before, laced with soft emotions he hadn't recognized then but knew about  
now. I can't change the past for you, but I can give you a second chance....  
Slowly to do it right, and doing it for the right reasons....  
  
Very well then, he thought as he decided he was finished thinking. He  
slowly leaned into her, kissing her deeply with a softness and tenderness that  
took not just her breath away but his as well. His right hand gently caressed  
her body in slow motion, tracing the soft curves of her neck and throat before  
moving down to toy with something far more softer.  
  
She made a soft noise to herself as she reached up to hold him, leaning  
back to let his lips and touch explore her. Their eyes met for a moment when  
he pulled his head back, able to see the wide array of emotions reflected in  
her eyes. Surprise, amusement, desire, curiosity, passion.... and something  
else. Yes, that one.... he had seen in Doris' eyes as well, but as he hadn't  
then, he still couldn't identify it now.  
  
D figured it could wait, as he had something a little more important to  
try to identify first.... the unknown emotion burning in his own chest. If she  
could help him with this one, great, and if not.... well, at least this one  
wasn't going to hurt her. Or him.  
  
He bent down to nuzzle her throat gently, using just the softness of his  
lips. He dared not press any harder for fear of reawakening his dark nature,  
content for now to listen to her soft intake of breath at the contact and even  
softer sigh of pleasure. His hand very gently massaged the ultra-softness of  
her breasts before moving down further, caressing the muscles of her abdomen.  
  
Her other hand responded in kind, sliding beneath him to brush against his  
chest. She turned her hand over to rub her knuckles against his stomach, her  
fingers making a rippling motion that made the bony nubs perform an unusual but  
pleasing dance against his muscles.  
  
The whispered sounds of pleasure increased in volume as he edged down, his  
lips peppering her skin with kisses as he blazed a trail down to her breast.  
The slightest parting of his lips allowed the throbbing point of her nipple to  
slip into his mouth, giving him the opportunity to experiment with it in ways  
he had occasionally overheard being discussed. It seemed there was some truth  
to all that had been said and that he was doing something right, as she readily  
responded to his tender attentions.  
  
Her hand continued to mirror his as he slid it down even lower, spending  
a few moments marveling at the soft patch of hair framing the gentle pucker of  
her sheath. He was almost distracted from his oral task as she returned the  
favor, her fingertips lightly intertwining and toying with the sparse patch of  
hair that surrounded his manhood.  
  
He very carefully leaned over her, letting his mouth and tongue caress her  
other breast as he brushed a single fingertip over her nether lips. He could  
already feel the warmth, the wetness, the scent of her musk calling to him as  
it had earlier. He didn't doubt that he would have reacted on his own without  
her gentle touch on his manhood, but it just felt so right to be with her  
like this, gently giving her pleasure and gently receiving pleasure in return.  
  
He stroked her gently, parting her lips just enough to let the tip of his  
finger dance over the pearl of her womanhood. Her breathing was still steady,  
but he could feel how deep it was becoming, feel the tension in her body as she  
stroked his shoulder-length mane of hair with gentle urgency.  
  
His mouth moved back up to hers as he edged himself away from her touch,  
very carefully shifting his weight. Her lips melded to his as she leaned back  
into the bed, pulling him down to her. The searing kisses went on until he  
started to move, bringing his lips down to her neck as he entered her.  
  
The sound she made was music to his ears, a sighing gasp that was neither  
but was something far more instead. He moved with deliberate slowness, taking  
his time easing into her fully. He let himself rest for a moment, marveling  
at the sensation of being inside her before just as slowly and gently starting  
to withdraw.  
  
"D...." she murmured softly, her voice filled with so many emotions that  
he literally couldn't tell one from the next. Another soft moaning rose up  
from her chest as he filled her once again in a slow and gentle thrust. "Oh,  
god, D, what are you doing...."  
  
There could only be one answer, only one right answer. "I'm doing it the  
way you told me to," he breathed softly in her ear. "Slowly to do it right,  
and doing it for the right reasons."  
  
"D...."  
  
He stilled her lips with a soft kiss and a gentle movement inside her.  
"I wanted to make love to you, Leila," he replied quietly, almost inaudibly.  
  
The tears took him by surprise, seeming to well up without warning as her  
arms tightened around him. "D...." she started to say, trying to look up at  
him through the watery veil. "I love you," she finally whispered.  
  
And then it became clear to him, absolutely crystal clear, what that last  
emotion had been, what he seen in both her eyes and Doris' eyes. He had every  
reason to believe that she was sincere in saying so, that her human heart was  
indeed in love with him.... And yet....  
  
"I know," he said quietly, not knowing what else to say before kissing her  
once again. A deep chill ran down his spine as he suddenly remembered saying  
those exact same words, those same two hollow, empty words to Doris after she  
had confessed her love for him.  
  
He was being given a second chance, and the past was repeating itself.  
  
The thought was thrust from his mind with as much mental force as he could  
muster. Not now, he couldn't deal with that thought now. He was with Leila,  
inside Leila, not just having sex but making love to her. It wasn't with his  
body.... well, yes it was.... but he was taking her with his heart, with the  
human part of him that she had just showed him how to open, how to use, how to  
enjoy. And most importantly, how to live with.  
  
He did his best to empty his mind of everything but his thoughts of her,  
trying to keep his pace slow and steady. He managed to do a good job of it  
too, at least by his standards. He wasn't sure at which point the slow and  
steady pace of gentle love-making had become a little more passionate, a little  
more energetic, a little more alive, but neither of them cared.  
  
All that mattered was that they were together. Alive.  
  
And gloriously human in their love for one another.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
She had no idea when she woke up, having fallen asleep in his arms after  
the slow and lengthy bout of passion. She knew he had fallen asleep as well,  
which didn't surprise her in the least. Three times in a single day was more  
than enough for a man of any species. And so she slept next to him in utter  
contentment, dreaming a very nice dream for the first time in years.  
  
She carefully opened her eyes at the sound of something metallic, not sure  
what to make of it. It seemed her eyelids took their time in parting, bringing  
the darkness into a semblance of focus that took another few moments of effort  
to refine.  
  
The sound had been made by his sword as it was secured in place against  
his back, the tip of the scabbard almost brushing the floor. His dark clothing  
seemed to blend in well with the near-darkness of the room, only the paleness  
of his head and hands standing out in stark contrast.  
  
He must have sensed her shift into consciousness as he suddenly paused in  
mid-motion, turning around with his wide-brimmed hat in his hand to look over  
at the bed. A deep look of sadness seemed to cross over his face before he got  
it under control, his expression once again returning to the stoic, impassive  
mien she was quite familiar with.  
  
"D...." she whispered, knowing that he was getting ready to leave.  
  
He said nothing as he set his hat down on the bed and walked over to her,  
kneeling down next to her. He reached out to her, taking her hand in his and  
giving her a gentle kiss that almost made her whimper.  
  
"The storm has broken," he said very quietly.  
  
"D," she said quickly, grabbing his hand in a grip of desperation. "You  
don't have to go just yet, please don't...."  
  
"It's night now," he replied calmly, bringing his left hand up. "You need  
to rest until the morning and take care of those wounds."  
  
"D" she breathed as she started to sit up. His hand touched her bare  
shoulder and suddenly everything became hazy, very very hazy....  
  
"Sleep, Leila," he whispered to her as her eyes closed despite her best  
efforts at keeping them open. She could feel herself falling into a void, a  
place where dreams and reality intersected and she couldn't truly tell one from  
the other. She could still hear his voice, however, soft as it was and laced  
with pain. Not the pain she had heard earlier, but a new kind of pain.  
  
"You know why I have to do this, to return to the hunt I have devoted my  
entire life to. If I quit now, while I am so close to ending this, it will  
mean that I have thrown my past away for nothing. I can't do that, Leila, not  
for you, not for Doris, not for anyone.  
  
"Maybe one day soon I will be victorious, and that none who walk the land  
will be contaminated with that dark evil. Should it be within your lifetime,  
I will try to find you once again. I couldn't promise Doris the same, and so  
I can't promise that to you either, but I will try.  
  
"What I will promise to do is what you asked of me earlier, to accept an  
offer of human love and warmth should it be given to me again in the future.  
I didn't know what it would be like, no idea how it might have affected me and  
not understanding the force behind it, and so I always pushed it away. You  
changed that for me, however, you showed me just how much of a fool I was for  
ignoring the potential out of distrust and fear. For that I can never thank  
you enough. I will never forget Doris for how she helped touch my humanity,  
and I will never forget you for how you touched my human soul.  
  
"I do not know where my travels will take me, but I will always take some  
comfort in knowing that at least one leads back to you and the warmth of your  
love. I do not look forward to having to keep my other promise to you, but I  
will bring you flowers one day. I can only pray that you do not surrender the  
warmth of your heart to the void in my absence, that you can keep it burning  
long enough until someone else touches your heart as you have touched mine. To  
not love is a travesty, but to know love and then lose it is even worse, as I  
believe Meier Link understands now.  
  
"I must go now, Leila. I only hope that you can still show me your love  
in your smile when I deliver the flowers to you. Farewell, my friend."  
  
The words faded gently from her conscious mind as the dreams rose up to  
claim her. The ethereal images were of a hopeful future, one in which he would  
only be gone for a short time before returning to her, a bouquet of soft white  
flowers in his arms and that look in his eyes again, a look she had only seen  
once before as he held her near the end of their love-making.  
  
She wouldn't discover the ring on her finger until the morning, the gold  
band that had once belonged to Charlotte and was now the only proof of her sad  
passing. The letter resting atop her knife holster wouldn't be spotted until  
she had finished crying and had gotten dressed, informing all who read it that  
the vampire hunter known as D had finished his task as promised, and that his  
assistant would who bore the ring as proof would be accepting the payment of  
twenty million dollars on his behalf.  
  
For someone who had next to nothing, the gift was almost more than she  
could bear. The tears started anew, only to be replaced by a gentle smile on  
her lips as she truly realized what he was giving her: A chance at a new life.  
Twenty million would be more than enough to get her started on whatever path  
she wanted to walk in peace. And walk it she would, unable to prevent an odd  
smile from crossing her face whenever someone asked her about her past and how  
she had gotten to where she was now.  
  
The smile inside her, however, the gentle smile of love engraved into her  
heart and seared to her soul, would only be quietly visible on her face when a  
storm would rumble past her, teasing her hair with gentle winds that always  
reminded her about a special man who had touched her heart and changed them  
both forever.  
  
  
THE END  
  
Note: This story has been reformatted to comply with fanfiction net's engine.  
To view the story in its original format, please visit my website:  
www sailormoonv net  
  



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